The Hindu Business Line : OSI Systems plans new facility near Hyderabad

OSI Systems India, part of the Nasdaq-listed OSI Systems Inc, plans to set up a new development-cum-manufacturing facility near Hyderabad for security scanning systems and laser sub-systems for defence simulation applications.

The US-based OSI with revenues of $400 million (Rs 1,800 crore), is promoted by an Indian, Mr Deepak Chopra. It competes with the likes of GE, Siemens and Philips in healthcare and defence application products.

Mr Chopra, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of OSI Systems, said the company had recently carved out two new entities — Spacelabs Healthcare and OSI Optoelectronics — with the former set to focus on software services for in-house requirements and the latter for health group companies.

Addressing a press conference here along with the Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of ECIL Rapiscan, Mr L. Satyanarayana, Mr Chopra said the company was also planning a manufacturing base or laser sub-systems that go into defence simulation applications.

"We support about 40 per cent of the US airports and also some of the major global airports including seven in the UK, the KL airport in Malaysia, and Bahrain. All these years, we had been leveraging the base in Malaysia. Now, we plan to take advantage of India for the manufacture of some of the hardware for weapons simulations. Though we will not cut down on the Malaysian operations, the future growth would be fuelled by the India centre," said Mr Chopra.

Mr Satyanarayana said ECIL Rapiscan Ltd, the joint venture with ECIL and OSI, supported most of the airport luggage scan systems in India and is now exploring the options of manufacturing scan systems for container depots. With such large scan systems, a multi-axle vehicle can be scanned at seaports for contraband and metal scrap. The joint venture with ECIL has recorded revenues of about Rs 30 crore.

OSI is also in the process of launching Pulse Oxometer that helps monitor the oxygen level in the human body.

The company expects to invest about $2 million this year and expand its software development team from 130 to about 300 in two years.

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