SchwingStetter products offer updated control systems, high performance and a longer shelf life. Sundaresan Anand, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, SchwingStetter (India) Pvt. Ltd.
What is the status of the road construction industry? Has it led to order book growth of the concerned parties?
The road construction is doing extremely well, last year almost 8000 km of road construction was awarded and for the year 2016-17 the target is to release a contract to the tune of 10,000 km. So road projects will be coming up in a very big way and all the manufacturers of road machinery will be benefited by that. In the ICEMA general body meeting which concluded last month the response of all the manufacturers was quite good. Everybody was upbeat since the order book for everyone improved quite a bit. However the downturn of this trend is deliveries get delayed at times depending on availability of components and aggregates required to produce the equipments and this remains an area of concern.
Does this mean the industry is poised to look at capacity addition to augment the demand generated?
I wouldn’t say that the capacity requirement is going up, after the downturn in 2009, in 2010-11 most of the manufacturers had increased their production capacity, so an excess of capacity is available; we only have to gear up for availability of components. The availability of imported components is becoming a little bit of a problem because delivery of such components have a long lease time and that is where we are facing some issues. We do resort to getting these components by air freight, but it leads to increase in production costs. Hence even though the manufacturing capacity is available, availability of components in a time bound manner needs to be addressed.
What kind of automation has set in the road construction equipment sector?
Schwing Setter equipments were computer controlled from the beginning - the automation part being referred to already exist. As far as the telematics part of it is concerned, there is an ongoing discussion between ICEMA technical panel and MRTH to implement it. At SchwingStetter, we keep on updating our control systems, so you can practically do everything with our control system, besides controlling the quality of concrete; you also have access to practical information about consumption of material. When it comes to maintenance and service, we have taken it a step further; we provide timely reminders including SMS alerts for preemptive maintenance. This ensures that all the components are in safe working condition and there is no compromise on safety.
As far as the overall growth in infrastructure is concerned what is the story so far?
If you take the year on year growth in infrastructure it ranges to 25% growth, WRT road sector it is doing extremely well following which demand for backhoe loaders and excavators has shot up by 30% and 50% respectively. Mining projects too have an important role to play in this, mining projects have fructified as a result of Coal India trying to double its production capacity by 2020 besides some iron ore mining activities. Sectors like power and development of ports are slow moving areas and are still lagging in the infrastructure race, likewise real estate too I believe will take longer time to bounce back and be in the same line. The current budget has allocated a significant amount of funds for port development, airport development, metro projects; these projects need to be executed since we are yet to see a real take off in this area.
What according to you is the state of real estate in India; is it taking a nosedive?
The real estate market won’t go down but generally speaking it is not going up; if you take a look at the last three or four quarters, you can see very clearly as far as the metro cities are concerned it has not registered any growth worth commending. Big players have huge inventories of constructed projects which are lying unsold. Even in the affordable sector where the developer is offering price concessions it has not made much of a difference.
When it comes to availability of technology to ramp up the construction of roads and highways where do we stand?
The machinery and equipment being used in road construction sector is state-of -the-art; the technology at play too is what is being used in other countries. The manufacturers and suppliers through whom these equipments are acquired are all international, so it readily gives us access to the latest technologies that can be put to use. So I can safely tell you when it comes to utilisation of latest technologies in road construction to a great extent we are in sync with our international counterparts. Having said that there are few areas of improvement like the compaction equipment, predominantly we are using only 10 tonne compactors whether it’s the higher compactor, whether it’s a tandem roller, I think to speed up the whole work higher capacity equipment should be put to use. In the past 20 tonne excavators were used, however due to mining activities which have come up the high capacity excavators are now in demand. In road construction sector also they should look at high capacity compaction equipment, as far as asphalt plants are concerned they are already using the high capacity equipment.
What is the USP of SchwingStetter’s products?
Schwing-Stetter is a leading system supplier for concrete machinery worldwide. SchwingStetter products are based on German designs and German designs are known for their high -performance, robustness and longer shelf life. I can give you umpteen examples of where our equipments have performed seamlessly for an extensive time period; and this includes batching plants which have the maximum number of wear components, even these equipments are working successfully for 20- 25 long years. The success of this story should also be attributed to the infallible quality of our products which in turn reduces the operating cost to a bare minimum. It is in fact a miniscule of what the competition is offering.
What are the international markets SchwingStetter India is catering to?
We cater to the East Asian markets, in certain select cases we are also exporting certain equipments to the Middle East, but the East Asian market is completely with us now. So a bulk of the products manufactured in India is exported to the East Asian market. We have gained a foothold in certain areas in the African markets too. In certain French speaking markets the specifications of the equipments in use is what we manufacture in India, though we won’t be selling their directly, there is a future possibility to re route our products in the French market via our offices based in Germany.
Is the market of mobile batching plants growing in India?
Mobile batching plants are most ideal for road jobs, let’s say the contract procured is for building a 100 km road, so as the work progresses and concrete needs to be transported to the other end there is no way to do that unless you have a mobile batching plant. A regular high capacity batching plant costs a lot of money and it cannot be shifted, moreover the foundation cost for erecting a regular plant is also high. All these disadvantages are offset by utilising a mobile batching plant, these can be shifted very easily in a week’s time and the production of concrete can be restarted. In a way it enables you to efficiently handle your tasks, more so, when deadlines are involved. Since the mobile batching plants are 120 cu.m/hr it can also be used for other projects apart from road construction. Madhucon who were one of our first clients to use these plants have effectively used them for numerous projects from time to time in different locations, in doing so even the cost of the equipment is recovered in a relatively short span of time. We are promoting our mobile batching plants very strongly and people are able to understand the benefits of the product. We are supplying 30 to 35 mobile batching plants to DilipBuildcon alone itself then there is Sadbhav Engineering and the rest.
What is your take on the prefab market? When do you plan to enter this market?
Actually worldwide prefab technology is gaining momentum and we are watching it closely. There are some good companies in Germany, we are planning to tie up with them and introduce a slew of products. Right now we are looking for a good partner who can enter into a license agreement with us and we can make the plants for them. We have been unsuccessful in finding a good partner so far. Our parent company in Germany is also helping us in identifying prospective partners for the JV. However I do feel we will be able to find a partner and execute a JV soon. We will also look at manufacturing equipments for the precast industry, because in the future, in the building industry, most of the components like columns and slabs will make use of precast technology, more so because it speeds up the work like anything. We are little bit lucky that the building industry has not adopted the precast technology in its totality so it gives us a window to make inroads in this emerging trend. A lot of education needs to be imparted to the contractors so that they can successfully adopt this technology in their projects. Unfortunately few precast equipments have come to India and they are not of very high quality owing to which people are facing problems. So these drawbacks need to be offset through proper education and utilisation of high quality equipment. L&T is one of those companies who are working very strongly in this area to educate the people.
As far concrete pumps are concerned has the demand for boom pumps shot up?
WRT boom pumps, the price difference between the trailer pumps and boom pumps is quite high, the boom pump is approximately four times costlier than the trailer pump and hence there is some reluctance in the mind of the client to purchase a boom pump. Another concern is when it comes to the capacity and price difference there is not much of a difference if you purchase a 20m boom or a 36 m boom. We are trying to figure out a product which is substantially cheaper than our 36m boom, once that happens we will be able to push the bargain. Contractors are often worried about the fact if they will be able to recover the price if they invest in a boom pump, having said that I must also add at the start of this year we have been able to sell a good deal of boom pumps, I personally believe that the future holds a lot of promise for the boom pumps market and a surge of sales is definitely expected.
