Lexus-Octonus GROUP : Pioneers in Diamond Engineering

At the forefront of India’s tech revolution is the Surat based Lexus – Octonus group founded in 1992 by its Directors - Mr. Utpal Mistry and his brothers Mr. Janak and Mr. Kamal. The company along with their PartnersOctonus Group has invented, patented and launched several hi – tech diamond machines. At the core of Lexus group are Artificial Intelligence supported by Human Intelligence (AISHI) and PHYGITAL technologies.

Mr. Anil Prabhakar met Mr. Utpal Mistry at his Surat office. Following are the edited excerpts of the conversation.

I am a proud Surti, I was born in a lower middle-class family where the importance of education was imbibed on to us. I am a gold medalist Electronics engineer from SVNIT. Like most of my batch mates I also wanted to migrate to America and had applied for admission and scholarship in many prestigious universities. My father however, dissuaded me from leaving India. This was really very disappointing for me.

Those were the boom days for professionals in electronics and computer engineering. I therefore started getting offers from the corporate sector.

After working for one year in the R & D department of Essen Computers, I became responsible manager for introducing the First 3.5 inches 1.44 MB Floppy Drive to be supplied to Wipro Computers. I have thus played a role in the development of INDIA’s First 1.44-inch Floppy Drive, in collaboration with TIAC, JAPAN. Later on, I felt cheated by my boss who bypassed me and denied an opportunity of an overseas assignment. He chose one of his sycophants over me.

In a fit of anger, I resigned. My family was shocked as it was considered blasphemous to quit a job, with no alternative offer in hand. But enough was enough and I decided to chart out a new path.

I had no background in the diamond industry. But then I met one gentleman who changed the course of my life. His name was Shivabhai Patel. They were 4 brothers named Bhimjibhai , Shivabhai , Khurjibhai and Youngest Dhirubhai - who had their owned multi acre land popularly known even today as Diamond Nagar at Kamrej Laskana, 25 KM from Surat. They were polishing diamonds for Mafatlal Mehta (fondly known as Mafat Kaka). The Mumbai based Mafat Kaka of Smir diamonds was the legend and one of the biggest names of the diamond industry of those times.

After quitting my job, I set up my first Start-up - computer assembling firm named as DIGILOG computers in year 1991 after 2 years of my graduation. Annual Maintenance Service charges and training were a good start to build relation with clients with a condition to re-pay in case of faulty hard disks.

Due to my computer’s skills, I was called by Mr. Shiva Bhai to Diamond Nagar. I carried out a job of retrofitting a Machine with Electronic circuits for them.

He asked for me to display a Video Image onto his Computer IBM PC-AT that was DOC+S based.

He was keen to commence the development of such a Bruting machine for his captive use, based purely on electrical - electronics control.

He procured for me; all technical components required for the electronics of the machine. Later on, when he asked for even its complete mechanics also to be designed and manufactured, my elder brother Janak joined us and that was the beginning and the foundation of LEXUS group in 1992. We even ordered the most expensive component of that time “Creative's Video Blaster Card” for INR 50K. We worked day and night for manufacturing this machine and successfully completed it and named it AUTOBRUTER. Which was world’s very first computerised automatic Bruting machine.

Growth and Expansion :

With Shivabhai ‘s encouragement and support, we entered the diamond industry.

After we completed our first successful machine, Diamond Nagar wanted to build machines in bulk for them to be marketed under the name of SKUBID electronics. Later on as our market grew exponentially, our younger brother Kamal Mistry also joined us who had his own Mechanical Workshop for job-works .

Later on Octonus Group , Russia and Finland became our partners and then they developed / conceived / invented / partnered several Diamond Processing products that were proudly MADE in INDIA for the Entire Diamond World. Our company LEXUS Group is now an ISO 9001:2015company with our partners / agents in various countries like Belgium. Russia, Finland, Switzerland, South Africa, Botswana & China.

PACOR invented in 1992, by Octonus-Russia was the worlds very first diamond planning system with inclusions plotting through a microscopic lens and laser marking on DOS based computer system.

Our significant innovation was to convert ourAutobruter to windows-based machines when the very first windows 3.1 was introduced by Microsoft.

One of our recent patented products is Digital Adaptive Light Scope (DALS), a powerful microscope that offers reflection-free illumination of the stones under it; and Cut wise Live, a small desktop device that lets jewellers examine and compare diamond’s optical performance under different lighting conditions.

Cutwise Live : Some of the challenges faced by a jeweller are as follows:

1.Trade sellers have no tool to explain diamond performance, to command higher price for better performing diamonds. The only tool available to them is higher discount. 10x loupe observation is sufficient to observe clarity difference between diamonds. But the loupe offers little explanation on how the diamonds look in real life environment.

.A consumer at jewellery showroom is hardly offered any buying experience, which is so critical when they are willing to spend thousands of dollars on a luxury product.

Jewelers have hard time explaining the unique features of a diamond to buyers. It is difficult to explain brilliance, fire or optical symmetry to clients or consumers.

4.Diamond looks different in different seller’s office. So the trade buyer has little trust in purchasing diamond from any office due to past bad experience.

All these challenges can be overcome as Cutwise Online can be used to objectively compare two or more diamonds. the buyers can validate the videos and images they see on screen with the help of CutwiseLive.

DALS : Using DALS, teams from different locations can exchange ideas by sharing the microscope image of the rough, semi-polish, or polish diamonds in real-time without sending the diamond across physically. This facilitates quick decision making.

The sales team can shoot videos to highlight specific features and share them with their team members or online buyers.

GALAHAD COMPASS : It is another revolutionary product developed by Lexus-Octonus Group that has given a huge boost especially to the new diamond cutting centres in the African region, Botswana, Namibia, Angola and South Africa. In layman terms it is a “3D digital printer for a diamond,” or a google map for diamond polishing where

Dals

the artisan just aligns two dots source and destination to get precise facet angle.

It offers digital assistance so that even novice polishers can exactly produce all 57 facets to obtain a higher yield.

diamonds and diamond simulants. Standard features include:

Colourless to near-colourless diamond identification

NEW: blue-to-green and brown diamond identification

Automatic identification with results in <2 seconds Easy reading result with audio: “Pass” or “Refer” for further testing

Tests both mounted and loose diamonds 0.9mm or greater in diameter (approx. 0.005 carat).

The Gem tester is intended to test colourless to near colourless diamonds. It has a 100% accuracy in referring lab diamonds or diamond simulants. There is approximately a 3% chance a natural diamond may achieve a REFER result