Today we spoke with Fernando Riaño, who heads the Intelligent Digital Systems business unit within the Duro Felguera group. We talked with him about the importance of innovation in companies, how he sees the evolution of the industrial market and his future projects.
What does Duro Felguera do?
Duro Felguera is an EPC contractor, it is a company that does turnkey projects in industrial plants and power generation, green tech, services…. My business unit is a unit in which we basically carry out different types of innovation projects, projects related, basically, with three vectors of action, which are: the intralogistics field, the field of cybersecurity and new robotics, artificial intelligence and data science businesses.
How do you see the evolution in the industrial market in terms of acceptance of technological solutions such as yours?
Undoubtedly, everything in the industrial world, which is where we are heading, there is a clear vector which is technology, which is changing everything. We are also innovating technologies, we are introducing 4.0 technologies, which vertically enter into all the different business processes.
We, for example, in the robotic field, we are doing for customers in industrial plants, in the intralogistics field, we are loading the cargo for them.
We have previously stored the product and then, downstream, we integrate all of this from the end of the line, for example, to the pallet truck loading.
We do the automatic vertical storage, we go down by means of either a handling system or AGVs, AMRs, and then we load the automatic load. It is an automation process that I think is unstoppable in the industrial world and, of course, we are being very active in this market niche.
Fernando Riaño and Felipe Rebollo.
You have both hardware and software products, how do you experience the collaboration at Duro Felguera?
Undoubtedly, we have good partners, and it is absolutely necessary. I always say that, to go far, we need partners. If we want to go very fast, we can go alone, but of course we are going to need partners.
We have our own product, I think that’s one of the important parts within digital intelligent systems, that we have product both behind elevators and warehouse management and warehouse control system and we collaborate with companies to really see where they can complement us..
Undoubtedly, I do believe that collaboration with companies that somehow complement your product and your value proposition will always be much more attractive when you go with partners than when you go alone..
Which innovative project are you particularly proud of?
Undoubtedly one of the most innovative projects is Loading Robots.
We have created a spin-off, we call it SkateLab actually because what we have done is a spin-off within Duro Felguera for automatic truck loading, both rear loading and side loading of pallets.
It really is a product that we had several references for. In fact, we are with Procter & Gamble, with Phillip Morris, with Leclerc, in other words, we have very good references, but it is a product that we had somewhat forgotten or somewhat left aside and what we have done is create a SkateLab called Loading Robots, with a very powerful marketing concept and where we have introduced a very innovative aspect, which is the business model.
Because in reality we are not only offering the traditional CAPEX model, but we are offering an OPEX model in which we make a kind of robot as a service where we give the client the possibility of acquiring the equipment for an initial fee and then, what you do, is a kind of renting or back-renting in which they pay a fee.
In this way, the industrial customer, which is something that we see as an absolute trend, does not have to invest in CAPEX, but has the possibility of acquiring that good, that asset, through OPEX.
Looking ahead, what will Duro Felguera’s strategy be based on?
The strategy is basically based on three axes within Duro Felguera Intelligence Systems.
The intralogistics part, which we are greatly enhancing and diversifying, not only in what is the typical intralogistics customer, which is cardboard and paper, where we are a world reference, but we are moving into adjacent sectors in the world of steel, the world of coils… we handle heavy loads and, in the intralogistics aspect, we are carrying out projects of increasing perimeter and in adjacent sectors.
On the other hand, we have the cybersecurity sector, where we are really betting because we come from the world of encryption, encryption and we are going to be a systems integrator of cybersecurity and physical security solutions, where many of the projects of Duro Felguera are already demanding this type of cyber solutions.
And on the other hand, new businesses, where we have two use cases in artificial intelligence, which are basically intralogistics on the one hand and contiguous processing on the other hand. We are also entering the data center world, where from the point of view that data centers increasingly need more power generation, and that is where Durofeguera is a reference, with that ambivalence between what is the data center and power generation, we believe it is a great opportunity.
And last but not least, the truck loading, which is the robotized part mentioned above.
