Aid towards COVID-19 testing: Aluminium extrusion maker Sagar Asia producing disinfection tunnels and testing booths for hospitals

Sagar Aisa, Hyderabad, India based aluminium extrusion maker and supplier for Walmart India, has remodelled its business to produce aluminium disinfection tunnels and testing booths towards the support of COVID-19. The company has repurposed its Hyderabad unit and came out with the new products in just two weeks.

The company started its operation in 1977 to create hardware systems in aluminium, the company forayed into aluminium extrusions to supply for both the domestic and export markets, offering a range of products including ladders, extrusions, wind tower internals and aluminium aircraft docking and helicopter maintenance.

Sagar Asia rapidly revolved its product offering and developed aluminium testing booths to aid contactless testing since the COVID-19 outbreak. The company has donated testing booths to both Telangana and AP state governments to help ramp up their capacity for COVID-19 testing. The aluminium testing booths are also being used by hospitals and collection centres in the two States. Moreover, the company is also manufacturing aluminium disinfection tunnels for workers starting to resume work in factories and offices, owing to the increased demand for sanitisation products in hospitals and offices.

Ananth Sagar, Head, Business Development – Retail and E-Commerce, Sagar Asia said: “We witnessed that there was a huge demand for efficient, contactless COVID-19 testing in India and we wanted to help the government in the best of our capabilities. Our strong 100-member R&D team comprising engineers worked on several prototypes and models. Since we had some previous experience of building aluminium chambers and security cabins, we were able to come up with the Covid-19 aluminium testing booths with some modifications. Further, we also realised that with the offices starting to reopen, reliable sanitisation equipment will become very key. Foreseeing this shift, we also decided to add our contactless hand sanitizer stands and aluminium sanitizer tunnels to our product offerings.”

He added, “The Company is also in discussion with its HoReCa (Hotel/Restaurant/Catering) channels to supply disinfectant tunnels.”

The company has an integrated plant at Kallakal spread over one lakh sq ft to make extrusions, a 20,000 sq ft unit for ladders, a 60,000 sq ft plant to make wind tower internals and scaffolding (including robotic welding), and an OEM unit for a US company.

On new product development, he said, “We are looking at contact-less door opener, which can be opened with legs. We are also developing a laser-cut metal profile that can be used to access lift or ATM buttons. We are also developing aluminium partition. These are primarily to serve the Covid-19 needs in the near-term.”