Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
The CEA, with grant funding from the UKTI Advanced Engineering Sector, are implementing an
India initiative to evaluate and develop opportunities for CEA members in this enormous and
rapidly developing market. The two year project, called the India Knowledge Base, comprises a
four phase approach –
• Research
• In Market Meet the Buyer Seminar Visits
• Inward Visits by Indian manufacturers and end users
• UK Conference / Workshops.
Methodology
The CEA is looking to better understand what opportunities exist in India for both UK OEMs and
component manufacturers. For OEMs, we wish to identify who the end users for construction
equipment are in market, what their purchasing strategies are – and what applications construction
equipment purchased is used for. Additionally we are seeking to identify sources of components
and opportunities for technology transfer / manufacturing under licence. For UK component
manufacturers the CEA wants to identify potential customers, joint ventures and manufacturing
sources in India.
India has a major domestic market for construction equipment. Over 31,600 units were sold in
2006 - an increase of over 40% from 2005. This is forecast to expand to over 60,000 units by 2011.
The construction sector, which is the second largest employer after agriculture, employs a
workforce of 33 million and saw a growth of 12.1 per cent last year. Large scale civil engineering
work to improve India’s infrastructure as well as a booming residential and non-residential
construction sector have been the main drivers of this growth. The total investment in the sector
amounted to $60 billion during 2006 and in the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2011) a staggering
investment of $347 billion is expected in infrastructure development. The construction industry’s
value is forecast to reach $129 billion in 2011, contributing 10.5 per cent to the country’s GDP.
(Statistics courtesy of Off Highway Research).
Implementation
Phase One
The first research phase was completed in October / November 2007 by Joanna Oliver who
undertook a two week visit to India. Joanna spoke to 16 companies in four Indian cities – New
Delhi, Pune, Chennai and Bangalore - over two weeks and met with global and domestic OEMs,
component manufacturers, contractors, consultants, rental operations, research companies and
government departments. The areas covered included:-
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• The size of the Indian construction equipment market
• The scope of domestic construction equipment production
• The Indian Supply Chain
• Indian Government / Association structure
Components
Amalgamations Group
Bharat Forge
TVS Sundram Fasteners
OEMs
JCB Ballabgarh
JCB Pune
Telcon / Telcon Hitachi
Contractors
Larsen & Toubro – L&T
Punj Lloyd
ACT
The visit to the JCB plants in both Ballabgarh and Pune, employing around 1,200 people, gave a
great insight into how a UK OEM can make a huge impact into the Indian manufacturing sector.
The Pune plants in particular were a good example of state of the art facilities and how quickly
such premises can be built. JCB source around 90% of components locally and have an
astonishing 75% share of the Indian Backhoe market. Telcon (TATA) in Bangalore showed how
Indian domestic OEMs worked – and how an international joint venture (with Hitachi) works.
Meetings with leading contractors, Larsen & Toubro, Punj Lloyd and ACT gave an understanding
of the end users of construction equipment. Comments from all three companies were that, while
they were impressed by the quality and reliability of global standard equipment, they felt that
delivery times were much too long, prices too high and that some equipment was much too
sophisticated technologically for some of the under educated operators and was too difficult to
repair in the field. Worryingly one these companies stated that they were now purchasing much of
their equipment from China as, not only was the cost 50% lower than that of global equipment, but
Chinese manufacturers could deliver in a matter of days, provide good in market service support
and supply free loan machines to support large orders. It has been alleged that this is eased by the
enthusiastic support of the Chinese government.
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Meetings with component manufacturers - Bharat Forge – Pune, TVS - Sundram Fasteners –
Chennai and the Amalgamations Group - Chennai were especially enlightening as to the high
standards and advanced manufacturing processes employed in India. At Bharat Forge – the
largest single site forge in the world and the second largest global forging company – the facilities
rivalled those of any seen in the west. With their traditional automotive and commercial component
sector back ground plateauing out, all three companies were looking to break into the construction
equipment sector, and were investing in equipment to allow them to service the sector. Both Bharat
Forge and TVS had already acquired UK companies and were manufacturing in England and
Scotland. All three companies were interested in meeting UK OEMs and also component supplies
for partnerships.
On the research side Joanna met with Off Highway Research in their newly opened Delhi offices,
run by Nitin Sareen a formerly of JCB and Terex Vectra. Off Highway are sector filling a gap in the
research market in India and have just completed the second multi-client study of the India market.
Consultants, Mott MacDonald, based in Noida detailed how they work with government and major
contractors to undertake infrastructure development programmes.
Continex in Chennai are a company set up by Sri Nagesh, a former head of the Automotive and
Construction Equipment Sector at the British High Commission Consulate in Chennai to assist UK
companies source components in India and find partners in the market. Continex have expressed
an interest in providing an office for the CEA and its members in India and assisting them to find
partners, distributors, customers etc. Continex will run the 2008 CEA seminars and other in market
events.
From Government and Associations Joanna spoke to the National Highways Authority of India –
the government body responsible for setting and awarding contracts for infrastructure projects and
the Builders & Contractors Association of India who represented over 30,500 builders and
contractors. They are hoping to set up a manufacturers group for construction equipment.
The British High Commission Consulate in Chennai detailed how they could assist UK companies
wishing to visit India with research and market introductions. Finally the emerging rental sector was
represented by Quipo Rental & Finance in New Delhi and Calcutta, a division of Srei Equipment
Finance and rented equipment around India, largely to contractors on infrastructure projects.
Although the Indian education system produces a high number of engineering graduates, all
employers cited very high attrition rates in their workforce as a major problem. As the economy
rapidly expands there is always another employer willing to offer a few hundred rupees a week
more to secure good workers.
Despite the pitfalls of high import duty for construction equipment – presently around 35%, high
volume of domestic production, vast geographical area and poor communications and
infrastructure, there are still major opportunities for UK manufacturers in India. Government
infrastructure projects often stipulate that machinery must be of a certain standard and maximum
age and so there I still a market for imported products. Additionally certain categories of equipment
that are not produced domestically are free of import duties, along with equipment used on major
government projects.
Phase Two is to take UK companies with an interest in developing / expanding their Indian
activities, to India to meet with potential partners. It is intended to run a Seminar Mission using the
model successfully established in China; i.e. to take a group of four to six UK companies to two or
three Indian cities. Companies make a presentation of around 30 – 40 minutes each in the morning
and, following a networking lunch, have one-to-one meetings with interested companies in the
afternoon. The CEA would also make a generic sector presentation on behalf of the UK sector at
the seminars.
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The Meet the Buyer Seminars will be held during the week commencing 8 September 2008,
starting in Chennai with a seminar followed by a joint networking event in conjunction with the
SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders).
Seminars will be held in Pune and Chennai - Indian construction equipment and automotive
clusters. To maximise the impact of the UK presence in India the CEA will link up with delegates
from the SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders) in Chennai for joint networking
events. The CEA will:-
• organise the guest invitations (speakers welcome to add any of their own contacts)
• arrange the Seminars, factory visits and networking events,
• Arrange in market travel, domestic flights and hotels.
Thanks to generous UK Trade & Investment sponsorship, no charge is made for participation in
the Seminars – although speakers will be required to meet their own costs for travel,
accommodation, subsistence etc. Grants may be available through the Regional Development
Agencies. Places are limited, and any UK company interested in participating should return this to
Joanna Oliver as soon as possible – joanna@aslnorth.co.uk or phone +44(0) 208 2534502
Funding for phases three and four – a UK Inward Visit by Indian manufactures and end users and
an India Seminar / Conference to be held in the UK have been bid for in the 2008/09 UKTI
Advanced Engineering bidding round. The results of which should be known shortly.
Conclusion
With its commitment to improving infrastructure, commercial buildings and housing stock, India is a
vast market with huge opportunities for UK manufacturers – both OEMs and component
manufacturers. However, it is also a highly price sensitive market with high import tariffs for most
finished good and components and is intensely bureaucratic and demanding. Labour costs are
increasing and workforce attrition rates are high. Due to heavy demand, the costs of raw materials,
especially steel are at a level where the cheap manufacture of basic components is not necessarily
lower than in the west. UK companies should not expect it to be easy to break into – but with
perseverance, research and the right product there are excellent opportunities to increase sales,
find partners and joint ventures and source components.
With its ongoing India Knowledge Base programme, CEA strives to identify these opportunities and
to ease market entry for suitable UK companies.
Joanna Oliver
CEA Director of Global Programmes
May 2008
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Company Name: Advanced Construction Technologies PVT Ltd (ACT)
ACT has four branch offices in Tamil Nadu and one in Kerala.
E-mail: transtec@vsnl.com
Website: www.actind.com
• Distributors for:
Atlas Copco
Carmix
CDI
CEDIMA
ERKAT
Indelec
Olvex (Russia)
Schnell
Wacker
ACT has been in existence for 60 years and was started by the present
MD, Mr Ramanathan’s grandfather. The equipment importing business
has been trading for 8 years.
Opportunities for the UK: Looking for more hand tools to distribute. Mr Ramanathan would also be
interested in meeting companies manufacturing hand tools and light
equipment as he felt there were no good domestic manufacturers.
Other opportunities / There is space in the market for a good rental company to start up.
Although the demand was not great at present – there would be an
comments from Mr established need in 18 months to two years.
Ramanathan:
Although mini or midi excavators are not widely manufactured in India,
there will be a market for them very shortly as contractors are now
looking for maximum speed on a project with minimum disruption
particularly when they are working on jobs in cities. TATA had tried to
make mini excavators and had failed – he but chose not to elaborate on
why.
Used equipment that is being imported into India is sold as is and
refurbished / remanufactured. There was probably a good market for
refurbished / remanufactured equipment in the Indian market.
ACT has links with a training institute to train people to operate Volvo
equipment at the Volvo India University - previously run by Ingersol
Rand. The University offers a diploma then a master’s degree course.
It’s easy to get financing for construction equipment as Indian banks are
cash rich at the moment and if you have a good credit reference, it’s
easy to get financing. He said 95% of capital equipment is funded
Rental isn’t very big yet in India, apart from Quipo, but he thinks in the
next two years it will really take off. He said that he thought that Quipo
had started as a rental company because it was part of Srei International
Finance Group who were buying a lot of equipment off shore and if they
couldn’t find a buyer for it in India, then it went on rental.
There is a CAT rental office in Chennai and Nagpur which rented out
equipment up to backhoe size but he did think that there was space for
another good rental company to start up.
He also mentioned, which I have not heard from anyone else, that if you
are moving construction equipment around the different states in India,
then the equipment can be taxed as it crosses the state border. However
he said the tax between states was supposed to be unified in the next
few years and once that was done, there would be more opportunity for
stock to be moved around and also for the sale of second hand
equipment.
A lot of western equipment was far too technically sophisticated for the
domestic market, people wanted user-friendly equipment and they didn’t
want automated controls and computerised cabs. Operators tended to
reject the highly technical machines, as they were afraid of damaging
the technology. Operators tended to have very low literacy levels and
little education, so it was very hard to teach them anything to technical.
Mobile:
E-mail: akvcamal@md4.vsnl.net.in
Website: www.amalgamationsgroup.com
Activities, structure and There are 43 companies in the Amalgamations Group (AG), with 34
manufacturing plants covering engineering primarily for the automotive
history: and tractor sectors. They include: engine components, engine bearings,
pistons, wheels and bearings. On the forging side, they forge axles,
crankshafts and precision forgings.
AG also has some machine tooling capability for the engineering sector
and manufactures the machine tools. They have several non
engineering divisions which include: AMCO Batteries (est. 1956),
Addison & Co. precision metal cutting tools (est. 1873) Stanes Tyre and
Rubber products (est. 1943), tea and coffee plantations and a publishing
house - Higginbothams (est. 1844).
AG has joint ventures with Stanadyne Corp. USA and BBL Daido Japan.
AG makes diesel engines for the global market and repairs engines for
the domestic market. It makes engines for New Holland and John
Deere, which use India as a manufacturing base as they can achieve the
quality and price control which made them competitive in the export
market.
Opportunities for the UK: AG wants to grow its business. At present it supplies CAT and JCB with
some engine components, also L&T Komatsu with engines.
In common with other the CEA companies visited, AG had not yet been
approached by any other national trade associations.
Other opportunities / Domestic engine and component prices are very competitive but he
wasn’t sure that the domestic capacity at present was adequate.
comments from Mr Therefore a lot of Indian companies were expanding so that they could
Krishnamoorthy: meet the growing demands of the construction equipment sector.
(Mr Krishnamoorthy is There are opportunities for manufacturers of trenching and pipe laying
the son of the founder of equipment to set up in India because they are not yet manufactured
domestically. Equipment presently tended to be imported from Japan by
the group) Komatsu and Yanmar.
Many ports were being redeveloped and were working to very tight
deadlines and so increased mechanisation was required.
India has been a service based economy for a number of years and is
now moving towards being manufacturing industry based, whereas the
Chinese have gone straight into the manufacturing base and the
economy has grown exponentially. India now needs to catch up instead
of just offering call centres.
E-mail: yagrawal@bharatforge.com
gkagrawal@bharatforge.com
mkhandelwal@bharatforge.com
Website: www.bharatforge.com
Activities, structure Established in 1966, employing 6,700 people and part of the US$1.5 billion
Kalyani Group, Bharat Forge (BF) is the world’s largest foundry in a single
and history: location and is the world’s second largest overall foundry company. BF has
another plant at Chakan nr Pune. It has three manufacturing divisions:
Closed Die Forging, Open Die Forging and Machined Components.
The Kalyani Group has joint ventures with Meritor (USA), Carpenter
Technology Corp. (USA), FAW Corp. (China) Hayes Lemmerz (Germany).
BF has operations in a number of countries, including the UK where it has a
foundry in Scotland (Ayr).
The BF Pune plant was vast and very well organised, very modern,
particularly the machine tooling production line, a lot of which was automated
and appeared to be running to an extremely high standard which would
equal or better anything seen in the west.
The Heavy Forge division produces forged and machine components (open
die forgings) for the capital goods industry: sugar plants, steel plants, cement
plants, bulk material handling, steam turbines, hydro turbines, windmills,
oilfield equipment and other industries.
BF bills itself as a “Full Service Supplier” of engine and chassis components.
It offers a service from product conceptualisation, design, manufacturing,
testing and validation. BF is the largest exporter of automotive components
in India and the leading chassis components manufacturer in the world.
BF only employs graduate engineers for all grades of job. They run an
apprenticeship scheme for graduates who work for 18 months on the shop
floor to gain a full understanding of the work, after which they graduate to
engineering positions.
Opportunities for the Source of forgings and components. Extremely keen on working with British
companies and would be very interested in meeting British companies at a
UK: seminar or other event in India.
Other opportunities / BF is expanding the sub assembly operation and they think that might be of
interest to manufacturers in the UK.
comments from:
Mr G K Agrawal BF are installing some new heavy presses and hammers which will allow
Mr Manish Khandelwal them to make open forged parts for larger equipment, such as crushing and
Mr Yogesh Agrawal: screening and materials handling equipment.
I was advised that Lord Digby Jones had visited the plant in September 2007
with a view to them manufacturing components for the aerospace industry
and had said that he would be interested in helping them with that project.
When asked if they perceived China as being a threat, they said that they
didn’t at present because they didn’t’ think the quality was as good as they
produced in India.
Company Name: British Deputy High Commission
Name and Position Ian Mason - Deputy Head of Mission & Head of Commercial Section
Sujith Thomas - Assistant Trade & Investment Advisor
of Contact:
E-mail: Ian.Mason@fco.gov.uk
Sujith.Thomas@fco.gov.uk
Website: www.ukinindia.com
Meeting notes and Ian said he was only in his post until February 2008. After that he would be
working with Helen Yendall in the West Midlands as part of a UKTI Regional
comments from Ian Trade team, so he could be a useful contact to have there. His replacement,
Mason: Rob Kelly, would be arriving in the New Year. He seemed to think I was seeing
the right people and he reiterated that Feedback – the company UKTI had
used to undertake a report on the Indian construction sector, appended to the
CEA Report – was a good company to use to do a research report.
Ian said that Komatsu were building a complete knock down facility in Chennai
to manufacture dump trucks and tipping trucks. He also mentioned a company
called Kaparo who are an automotive manufacturer in Chennai which is owned
by Lord Paul. The factory is run by his son, the honourable Angur Paul.
I mentioned that I had been approached by one of the leading contractors with
the suggestion that we might like to set up some sort of engineering graduate
exchange which would be to send qualified engineers that had graduated in
the UK to work in India and send Indian engineers back to the UK for
technology transfer. He thought that was a good idea and it might be
something that both the British Council and UKTI would be interested in getting
in involved in.
Ian said that corporate social responsibility was very important in India and that
there were some generous funding programmes available. He suggested other
companies worth going to visit would be Ashok Leyland, who have an R&D
Technology Transfer facility and are looking at supplying into the defence
sector from their Indian base, TAFE who manufacture tractors and farm
equipment and are part of the Amalgamations Group and ELGI Components
and Precal who make automotive components.
He then told me about the services he could offer if the CEA came with a
group. He would expect that I would either commission an OMIS (Overseas
Market Introduction Service) or that the members of the group would
commission one - this would cost £1,500 each. He said he could organise a
reception for me, for around £400 plus the cost of the reception. When told it
would be on a UKTI funded programme, he said he would not charge the
£400, just the reception, which included sending out invitations.
Company Name: Builders Association of India
Address: 203 Ashirwad Complex, D-1 Green Park, New Delhi, 110016
E-mail: rpcc101@vsnl.net
rajpal@constnindia.com
Website: www.baidc.com
www.constnindia.com
Activities, Founded in 1941, the Builders Association of India (BAI) has over 30,000
members with a head office in Mumbai and a regional office in Karampura, New
structure and Delhi. BAI has around 95 branch offices all over India with BAI representatives.
history: BAI represents construction companies, builders, contractors, architects,
designers, consultants and latterly construction equipment manufacturers. Its
activities include training programmes, government liaison, exhibitions and
technology.
BAI has just founded a manufacturers section of its association – the Indian
Construction Mechanisation Association (ICMA), which focuses on OEMs,
component manufacturers, contractors and other end users.
BAI, through Mr Raj Pal, are on the organising committee of the International
Road Federation Regional Conference. They were involved in running the 2007
event held in New Delhi. The conference is supported by World Highways
magazine
Mr Raj Pal, also a construction consultant, is the chairman of the BAI Exhibitions
and Seminars Committee. BAI organises the annual Building Materials
Construction Technologies (BMCT) exhibition held at Pragati Maidan in Delhi.
Although there is a section for equipment, BMCT does appear primarily to be an
exhibition for building products rather than construction equipment. However, Raj
Pal said that they were trying to expand on the equipment element of the
exhibition. Pragati Maidan, the main international exhibition centre in Delhi, has
100 acres of exhibition space and is close to the city centre. Visitors to the show
are mainly contractors and they are interested in buying and evaluating products.
The exhibition is supported by the government, by sending ministers and giving it
a high profile, but not financially. BMCT 2008 will feature stands from Sany,
Telcon, Beml and Universal Equipment.
Opportunities / Mr Raj Pal thought that there was a need to do an Indian survey at grass roots of
who the manufacturers and component manufacturers were. This was
comments from something that BAI was trying to do, but didn’t have the funding. He was
Mr Raj Pal Arora: interested in trying to do something jointly with the CEA. He didn’t have a time
frame for the project. He thought it would take at least a year to collect the data
and then possibly another year to analyse it. I recommended he contact Off-
Highway Research India who already held the data on the OEMs.
He said that on the manufacturing side, there are approximately 500 companies
in India producing construction equipment and its components. These are
broken down into roughly 100 OEMs and 400 component manufacturers. He
said that it was difficult to do research into these companies as it was hard to get
access into the factories, because there was the resistance to people coming
and asking too many questions because of taxation. The laws relating to labour
and employment rights varied from companies employing fewer than 100 people
to companies employing over 100 people. There were tax breaks for smaller
companies, so he felt that there might be some companies who didn’t want to
disclose the full size of their company because it would be detrimental to them,
both fiscally and with their workforce.
To take part in the tender process for government contracts, contractors have to
be pre-approved and on the government contractors tender list and they must be
class 1 to class 5 contractors. He said the tender process was fairly transparent.
Tenders for the construction of new motorways tended to be given 20km strips
as opposed to the whole stretch. This is because the government feels that
there are not really that many large contractors who could actually deal with
more than 20km. Some of the major contractors like L&T and Hindustan
Construction Company are given larger sections, but that’s the exception rather
than the norm.
Not many of the major contractors took work outside of India because they had
got plenty of work in India to keep them occupied, given the construction boom.
He did cite L&T, Hindustan Construction Company and Punj Lloyd as contractors
who were operating outside of India.
Small contractors tend to have their own fleet of equipment, major contractors
often only have large capital equipment on their inventory and then hire in the
smaller equipment.
Other Opportunity for UK companies to advertise in the directories for publicity and to
join new CE association.
Opportunities:
Company Name: Continex Tradeline India PVT Ltd
Address: 61-131 1st floor, GN Chetty Road, T.Nagar, Chennai, 600017, India
E-mail: sri.nagesh@continex.in
Website: www.continex.in
Activities, structure Continex offers sourcing and strategies for the automotive, construction and
engineering sectors. It has developed access to all the key suppliers of
and history: engineering and automotive components from Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore,
Nasik, Pune, Ludhiana and Delhi and is backed up by a team of professionals
with wide ranging expertise in sourcing, international trading, design engineering
and trade development. Continex also offers wide ranging consulting solutions.
Opportunities for Nagesh submitted a proposal for Continex to represent the CEA and its
members in India covering the following scope of work:
the UK:
1. Facilitate and organise at least three promotional seminars or workshops and
three receptions for CEA members exclusively or jointly in a calendar year. This
would include screening of key contacts, preparing lists of contacts to be invited,
posting invitations, receiving RSVPs and making all arrangements at the venue,
including designing backdrops, brochures, liaison with catering service providers
and hotels and liaison with government, key speakers and the press.
5. Arranging all logistics, including hotel bookings and internal flight bookings as
required and as mutually discussed depending on the requirements.
These services would be provided with a flat monthly fee to the CEA and
member companies. Expenses, travel, etc, would be recharged at cost.
Follow up required: The CEA Management Council has agreed in principal to work with Continex on
the organisation and promotion of two or three UKTI funded Meet the Buyer
Seminars in Pune, Chennai and possibly Bangalore. If these were satisfactory
then a more permanent arrangement with Continex would be established. The
CEA will contact member companies interested in establishing a presence in
India to establish the potential of a longer-term contract with Continex.
Company Name: JCB Backhoe Plant at Ballabgarh
Address: JCB India Ltd, 23/7 Mathuria Road, Ballabgarh, 121004 Haryana, India
E-mail: amit.gossian@jcb.com
attul.kataria@jcb.com
pradeep.ghai@jcb.com
sanjeev.arora@jcb.com
jiveshdeep.singh.sandhu@jcb.com
vineet.jaiswal@jcb.com
Website: www.jcb.com
Activities, structure JCB is the largest manufacturer of construction equipment in India, with a
machine park of over 30,000 machines. One out of every two pieces of
and history: equipment sold in India is a JCB. They have been present in the Indian
market for 27 years, beginning with a joint venture with Escorts. In 1999 JCB
bought out a 60% share of the JV and in 2003 they bought Escorts out
completely and are now 100% stakeholders.
JCB has a 75% share of the backhoe market in India, the rest is taken up by
Hitachi, Telcon, Terex and L&T Komatsu. They are hoping to produce 17,000
backhoes in India in 2008, of which only about 600 will be exported – to
countries within the region: Nepal where they have a dealer, Sri Lanka where
they have a dealer, Bhutan where they have a dealer and Bangladesh. They
don’t presently export to Pakistan and they think this might be because of the
political situation between Pakistan and India. They are looking at marketing
with military applications.
JCB only sell through their Indian distribution network, they don’t sell direct or
in any other way. The dealership main strengths are that they are exclusive
JCB dealerships and they have an extensive network. They have 44 main
dealers in India and a number of sub dealers and they offer 24/7 back up for
service engineers.
They have 264 outlets for parts and service in India and service engineers
operate both from the dealers and the regional offices – claiming that “you are
never more than 100km away from a JCB service engineer”.
Most machines are financed. There is no JCB leasing as in the UK, but there
are a number of finance agencies available.
They have no in-house testing for their equipment, they use third party testing,
some of which is done in the UK, but they are going to set up an in-house
testing facility in Delhi.
Sourcing & JCB have many component manufacturers in common with the automotive
sector. They develop a supply chain with preferred suppliers that are pre
Components: qualified to supply JCB. Component suppliers supplying JCB India need to
manufacture in India or in another low cost economy to meet prices realistic for
domestic models.
Castings are made locally by Indian companies. Fabrications are made in India
- some done in-house by their fabrications plant.
Excavators and wheeled loaders use Kirloskar and Ashok Leyland engines.
JCB have a global sourcing policy on hydraulics, mainly from Husco and
Parker.
Cabs and seats are sourced locally. Tyres are manufactured locally at good
value and also exported to other JCB plants.
60% of their components are purchased on a ‘just in time’ basis. For special
models a one-day inventory is kept. There is 2% annual inflation on steel costs
and the price of steel is erratic so it’s quite difficult to budget for fluctuations.
A UK global purchasing team is working from the Pune plant tasked with
sourcing global supplies form India.
Other Comments: JCB are actively trying to promote the profile of JCB in India to make it a
household name – and the generic name for backhoes and excavators as in
the UK. It was noticeable as there are lots of posters up and roadside
Jiveshdeep Singh hoardings – they have also sponsored road signs and roundabouts. At Pune
Sandhu is engaged airport there are lots of JCB hoardings.
to look at market
statistics and to try They have also had an excavator campaign to raise awareness of their heavy
excavator line and to show that JCB don’t just make backhoes. They are also
and work out JCB s working with engineering institutes and sponsoring engineering students.
marketing strategy They also sponsor a JCB prize for automotive engineers to target student
within the domestic engineers and to try and raise JCB’s profile.
market.
They are trying to source service engineers from the armed forces, as they
believe there are a lot of skilled people leaving the armed forces and retiring
Amit Gossain is in early who have a very good technical background.
charge of marketing
and their expansion JCB are not very active in the mining and quarrying sector.
programme.
Agriculture is an undeveloped market for JCB as currently it is not highly
mechanised and much farming is done on a subsistence level. There are a lot
of AG tractors in India, estimated at about 300,000 units but mostly with very
small 30 hp engines. However, there is a need to recruit people into promoting
JCB in the agricultural sector as agriculture gradually moves from intensive
manual labour and becomes mechanised
All Indian airports are being upgraded so there are opportunities there. Most
airports are state owned but are gradually being privatised. All the ports are
being upgraded on an ongoing programme and JCB report a 35-40% annual
growth rate for construction equipment requirements for infrastructure projects.
JCB will have approximately 110,000 units working in India by 2010 - the main
problem being the shortage of qualified operators. JCB run training (not for
profit) programmes for operators to support the product in market.
JCB estimate that 40% of their customers are medium to small contractors
who just have two to four machines, which they hire out by the hour. There
are almost no owner operators in India. 30-40% of their customers are large
contractors with up to 200 machines and the rest of sales are to new buyers
with no customer history. Defence and the Indian government take 6-7% of
their sales, but defence sales have slowed down.
Machines in India have to work harder than they would in the UK. A backhoe,
on average, is worked 14-16 hours a day with three different operators, so it is
kept in use most of the time.
An excavator would work for 1,000-1,500 hours between service intervals and
they are trying to make the owners understand that it’s important to get regular
service because if they don’t and the machine breaks down causing loss of
revenue.
Unorganised renting takes up 40% of the market and large rental companies
like Quipo are unusual. They don’t feel the rental sector is growing particularly
quickly.
Currently JCB don’t do any remanufacturing, they feel that the machinery is
generally so ‘used and abused’ that it is really at the end of its working life by
the time the first owner gets rid of it.
Indian labour costs are increasing rapidly with the wage inflation and it is very
hard to retain good staff because of this.
It’s cheaper to produce goods in China, but harder to get the quality and
shipping is a problem as the cost of freight is increasing very rapidly. The
freight companies seem to operate like a cartel so that all the prices are fixed
and extortionately high.
Engine emissions at present are not really regulated by the Indian government,
but they should be going onto tier 2 shortly. At present the engine emissions
are equal to tier 1, but by 2011, they will have to be at tier 3. JCB engines
meet all the emission standards, but they think they can also find locally
sourced engines which will meet tier 3 emissions.
Address: Talegaon Floriculture & Industrial Park, Village Ambi, Navlakh, Umbhre,
Tal.Maval, Talegaon, Dabhade, Dist. Pune, 410507, India
E-mail: buta.atwal@jcb.com
manish.mahajan@jcb.com
mark.turner@jcb.com
ajay.patil@jcb.com
Website: www.jcb.com
Activities, structure JCB have two factories at Talegaon Pune. Plant I deals with fabrications
and Plant II builds excavators and other heavy equipment. Both are under
and history: two years old and very modern in design and layout.
Sourcing and JCB are looking to bring over from the UK, to set up production close to the
JCB plant, manufacturers of cabs, hydraulics and other key components.
components – Ajay This would be a good opportunity for manufacturers struggling with costs in
Patil: the UK but who could succeed in the lower cost base of India.
JCB are very interested in meeting new component suppliers from the UK to
supply items not presently manufactured in India or who were interested in
setting up in India. They are interested in meeting companies that the CEA
could bring out from the UK, and are particularly interested in high-end
hydraulics, electrical components, electronics and undercarriages. They
also expressed an interest in Gate7 decals as they are always open to look
at any new component supplier if they could compete on quality and price
with the ones they already use.
JCB are always looking to add to their suppliers. On the fabrication side
they have about 70 suppliers to that factory of which 20 are components, 4
steel mills, 15-20 consumables and spare parts and 10-12 imported parts.
They import special grade steel from Corus foundries in Poland and steel
castings from Spain and China. They have eight laser cutting machines, and
four plasma machines for components.
They are currently using Isuzu engines on the heavy excavators, but they
are looking to source some locally produced engines, possibly from
Cummins. They won’t be putting the JCB engines in the heavy excavators.
Other opportunities: They felt there were opportunities for companies to look at the re-
engineering of engines and transmissions, not for JCB use, but thought
there was a gap in the market for that.
They felt there was a gap for a trade association or somebody in power to be
able to lobby the government because at present, lobbying tended to be in
the hands of an elite wealthy class who had access to government ministers.
Other Comments from Buta Atwal gave a tour of the offices of the fabrication plant and then around
the fabrications plant.
Buta Atwal:
JCB were well known for good quality in India and they were trying to make
sure that that continued with a marketing campaign.
It was very noticeable going up the road from Pune to Talegaon that there
were lots of JCB adverts along the road.
Plant II is manufacturing excavators for both the domestic market and for
export. At present they are exporting to Asian countries and Eastern
Europe.
From the fabrications plant, about 50% of the value of the equipment
produced there goes back to the UK, 30% goes to JCB Ballabgarh and 20%
to the excavator division at Pune.
From the excavator factory, 70% of the output is for the domestic market and
30% for export. Both factories are set up to produce goods of export quality.
The excavator plant is currently producing 50 units per day - excavators and
wheel loading shovels. Production is just beginning of the Vibromax rollers in
Pune. Vibromax were previously manufactured under a JV with L&T.
JCB are very strong on ensuring that their service market is well served.
They train designers, engineers and technology graduates and they are
preparing to set up robot cells on the factory floor.
Like all manufacturers, JCB is quite badly affected by wage inflation and by
lack of worker retentions, as people were head hunted and offered higher
salaries. To have a senior engineer or a senior management person of very
high calibre, you would probably be paying around £60k per year. Wages
have risen very steeply in the last few years.
Productivity is lower in India, generally due to the heat. The shop floor in
India might be 30 degrees so people would be working a lot slower than in
Rocester where the shop floor was only 16 degrees.
JCB reported growth rates from the Pune plants of 68% in just 6-8 months
and they were looking to achieve a 300% growth rate over the next 2 years.
It is hard to find good quality new component suppliers from outside the JCB
existing suppliers list and they are very interested in training up suppliers to
meet their demands and then working with them on a long term basis. They
are trying to get as many suppliers as possible within a 20km area of the
plant. This is not viable at present as Talegaon is only just developing as a
manufacturing centre. But the long term is to establish a supplier base to
ensure just in time supply.
JCB lobbied the Indian government directly on issues affecting the sector
because there wasn’t a trade association to act for them.
As JCB in India was working at full capacity they didn’t really have any need
for statistics at present, but would in the future as the market levelled off.
Indian labour laws are very difficult for employers as it is almost impossible
to dismiss an employee. Labour laws are heavily enforced by both trade
unions and by local influence from the villages and the community leaders.
Because it is so hard to dismiss anyone, employers tend to hire temporary
employees, or they just use contract labour, because the permanent contract
laws are so strict. Employers need to be sure of the merits of an employee
before offering them a long term contract.
The Indian work ethic is good and the Indian workforce tends to be very
motivated. JCB have a good health and safety record and they are presently
trying to improve working temperatures by installing air conditioning on the
shop floor.
Ajay Patil said that Indian component suppliers provided good value and
Ajay Patil: high quality components, but needed some good customer education. He
said that components that didn’t require particularly high specification could
be sourced in volume from China, but that Indian suppliers were preferable.
The ideal model, from his point of view, for a component supplier was a UK
company that had relocated to India as they had gone through the learning
curve with JCB and he said that they understood the JCB practices.
Mark Turner advised that Indian shipping tariffs had gone up by 40% in two
Mark Turner: years and the sea freight was in short supply for large equipment as there
were not many RORO ships operating out of Mumbai. The alternative port
was Chennai or Calcutta – both a long distance away. It was more
expensive to export products from Mumbai than it was from the UK. He
noted that the shipping agencies appeared to be working to fix the prices of
containers and heavy goods.
He reiterated that power was a big problem as one day a week without
power is not conducive to effective manufacturing!
Company Name: Larsen & Toubro Ltd ECC Division
Name and Position Vinod H Bellubbi - Joint General Manager Plant & Machinery
K Sridharan - DGM (Corporate Communications)
of Contact:
Due to see V.S. Ramana - Head - Corporate Communications - unfortunately
unavailable due to signing a contract for the new Mumbai Airport
Address: ECC Division, Mount Poonamallee Road, Manapakkam, P.B. No. 979,
Chennai, 600089, India
E-mail: bvinod@lntecc.com
ks@lntecc.com
vsramana@lntecc.com
Website: www.lntecc.com
Activities, Valued at US$5 billion, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) are the largest contractors in
India with over 60 years of experience. L&T ECC and L&T Komatsu are the
Structure and primary areas dealing with construction equipment. They also have interests in
History: a number of other areas, including ship building, oil and gas, hydrocarbons,
electronics and IT. L&T ECC recorded a revenue increase in 2006/07 of 16%
to RS 10,068 crore. 85 of this increase was due to export revenues for off
shore projects.
L&T ECC take on lump sum turnkey construction projects (LSTK) with single
source responsibility. To achieve this status in India is unusual and only the
very largest contractors are awarded single source projects. In the F/Y
2006/07 L&T ECC projects sales were broken down into the following sectors:
L&T make platforms for the oil and gas sector in Gujarat. Agco valves are
made in Chennai.
Their heavy engineering division supplies oil and gas and hydro carbons
equipment to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman.
L&T are just signing a contract for the redevelopment of Mumbai airport and
that would be worth 7,000 crore.
Once the brief introduction was over, I was given a 45 minute tour and a 15
minute film of the L&T museum situated in a brand new award winning building
on part of the huge L&T Chennai campus. The museum records the
company’s 60 years rise from when its founders - Mr Larsen and Mr Toubro -
came to India from Denmark. The museum featured, not only the history of
the company, but records of all the major programmes they had undertaken in
the past 60 years. In recent years, they appear to have covered about every
infrastructure programme from roads, rail, airports, bridges, water, pipe laying
to deep water ports, etc.
Sourcing: The fleet size for the contracting side of L&T was worth $400m in equipment.
L&T are adding another $16m worth of equipment in 2007/08.
L&T source globally for major capital goods, but tend to use subcontractors for
smaller equipment. They use their UAE office to procure tower cranes from
Europe and also batching plants and ready-mix concrete equipment. They
source equipment in the Gulf for projects that they are carrying out in the Gulf.
They would also hire in smaller equipment from their local regional contractors.
They use their own brand of excavators, L&T Komatsu, and they buy
tunnelling equipment from Japan and Germany. Most of their crushing and
screening equipment is Metso.
They have started sourcing some equipment from China and they have
opened an office there to look at equipment, but they are not planning any
major orders, because as Indian manufacturers, they are concerned about
dumping of Chinese equipment and they have been lobbying the Indian
government about potential problems with dumping.
Potain cranes from China had been purchased for their Dubai projects on a
‘buy back’ agreement. They felt these were of a very good quality and were
lasting well.
L&T own the biggest batching plant in Dubai at 2,400 M3, they also own a
number of crushers, all of which are Metso.
They have heavy duty cranes - over 100 tonnes up to 600 tonnes and they are
buying some of those from Chinese manufactures. They have 90 cross-
country pipeline pipe layers from China. They stated Chinese machines cost
75-100% less than buying a western machine, that the Chinese quality was
much improved and that they were providing a market back up, which made it
much more competitive.
Sales For the manufacturers of capital equipment, eg crushing and screening, paving
and heavy excavators, there may opportunities for them to approach L&T
opportunities: directly.
They have 3-4 airport projects at present, and they need road making batching
plants for those. Most of their paving equipment is Wirtgen, Bitelli and
Gomaco. They have Case and Volvo rollers, who have tie ins with Bomag.
For smaller equipment, sales would be to the sub contractors. Details of Indian
sub contractors can be found on the Builders Association of India website –
http://www.bainet.org/directories.htm and registering as a user for $15 per
annum.
Other Comments They have an international operations office in Sharjah responsible for winning
contract work in the region - worth about $45m per year. The office covers
from Mr Sridharan: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi.
They work with the Construction Industry Development Council to try and offer
opportunities for training and skills to fill the trained labour market gap. They
said that part of the problem with not being able to get operators was that the
Indian government now offered higher education on a wider basis. This
resulted in workers whose fathers might have been small time contractors or
just operators of machinery, weren’t now following the family trade, which was
the tradition in India, they are getting a higher education and going to work in
different industries.
L&T run a school for construction skills training as part of their Chennai
campus, and they also have L&T projects in all seven major metro centres in
India. They approach unemployed youths to train them for seven key skills
required in the construction industry, including how to become a builder, a
plumber, a fitter, an electrician, etc.
I mentioned the possible UK / India graduate exchange idea and they were
very interested in that. They said that you could exchange students in the UK
with the L&T institute interns as they already had that set up and they did have
an existing programme, on a smaller basis, with an American university. They
presently participated in the Japan Friendship Association who send student
engineers to India. They thought that a UK initiative was a very good move for
all concerned and felt that L&T would definitely support it.
They said they tended to work with local contractors in the Gulf, because the
Gulf States have their own site passport scheme for operators. This meant that
it was difficult to bring Indian operators over to the Gulf because they wouldn’t
have the right accreditation to get on site.
They use agents based in the Gulf to find them suitable sub contractors.
Because they are such a large contractor, they have individual business units
within L&T that deal with tendering for various jobs. These include separate
divisions for ports, airports, roads, factories, hydro carbons and form work.
They already have equipment in place in the Gulf, so that gives them added
credibility when they are tendering for projects in the Gulf.
L&T are looking to increase their revenue at 20% per annum to come from
overseas projects. In addition to the Gulf region, they are doing work in
Kenya, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
L&T were asked about the replacement policy for their equipment. They said
they had plant managers in seven regions in India and they were responsible
for the depreciation policy which was standardised throughout the company.
When the book value has reached zero, or when the performance is
significantly reduced, they are disposed of. They tend to use online auctions
for disposal.
They said that if the Chinese wanted to be taken seriously as big players in the
Indian market, they needed to get a lot more service and support engineers in
the market and have a larger spares and stock inventory kept in India.
They said with their capital equipment, some of their larger equipment is
purchased on a ‘buy back’ agreement for the manufacturers to take back and
refurbish and then sell on.
They said that in addition to national organisations like CII there were also a
number of state level organisations. They said that the Builders Association of
India - and the Contractors Association that was part of it, were very good and
that they would lobby on behalf of their members.
They reiterated that there is no loyalty in the job market. There are abundant
opportunities, which are a relatively new thing in India, people will offer more
money and your labour force changes jobs very quickly. It’s interesting that
although there are strict labour laws governing employees’ contracts, it doesn’t
work the other way. Although it’s almost impossible to sack somebody once
you have employed them, they can always go off after being offered more
money and get another job.
They confirmed (as heard elsewhere) that the Chinese government were
exporting their prisoners to work on overseas contracts for Chinese
contractors, particularly in the Gulf. They cited an example in Oman where
prisoners had been sent as very cheap labour thus giving Chinese contractors
the edge over anybody else.
Company Name: Mott MacDonald
E-mail: gaurav.srivastava@mottmac-india.com
Website: www.mottmac.in
Activities, Structure Mr Srivastava told me that Mott MacDonald took full control of the present
company in 2001, but the Mott MacDonald consultancy had actually been
and History: present in India for 35 years.
They have 1,200 staff split between Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi.
They are among the top 10 consultants globally.
They work with the National Highways Authority of India who is their major client.
They also work on the airport redevelopments with the airport developers;
because a number of the airports are now being run as PPPs and BOTs (build,
operate, transfer).
From the India centres they also run consultancy activities in Nepal, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives where they are doing a sewerage project on
behalf of the red cross.
What they want Mott MacDonald is active in tunnelling – a very important and large market in
India. They noted that there are no domestic manufacturers of tunnelling
from UK: equipment, so opportunities exist for manufacturers.
Other Comments All the global Mott MacDonald design is done in India. They employ architects,
engineers, civil engineers, process engineers and quantity surveyors in India.
from
Mr Srivastava: As the privatisation of the Indian airports programme increases, Mott MacDonald
is called in more often to be the lead technical supervisor on the redevelopment
project. They are currently working on the redevelopment of Delhi airport and
Delhi metro. They are very strong in this sector and have just won an award for
one of the new Delhi metro stations.
I asked how quickly projects got underway once they were put out to tender. He
said if the Indian government want things to happen quickly, it can be turned
round on a very short timeframe. He cited the example of one of the Delhi metro
stations, where the tender document went out and within a month, consultants
had been appointed and then the contractors were appointed equally quickly.
The Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are government priority, but they are
finding it difficult to acquire enough land. India, as a democracy, differs from
China where land acquisition is a formality. In India, land is mostly privately
owned by farmers, and some of them are very reticent to sell. He said it was
easier when building national highways, because they were designated by an
Act of Parliament so land was compulsory purchased.
He said aid funding is very significant in India for big projects. The Japanese
government is funding the New Delhi metro system with soft loans and that will
be done on a BOT system.
Many of the improvement plans are aid funded and it is the aim that all areas
should have access to running water, which is a programme of the Asia
Development Bank (ADB). The improvement of rail systems and upgrading of
freight corridors is an ADB and joint World Bank project.
Mott MacDonald tends to focus on getting repeat client work because they feel
they have a very good success rate. The Indian government appoint contractors
separately from Mott MacDonald, ie the contractors are appointed totally
separately to the consultants. However, if a project is particularly technical, then
the person running the contract might approach Mott MacDonald for advice
before appointing a contractor.
He said that in some contracts, particularly the government where the work is
very difficult, possibly in tunnelling or bridge building, contracts may state that
machinery used on the project must not be more than one year old.
He said that Health & Safety is a growing concern in India. It’s not quite as strict
as it is in the UK, but legislation is strengthening and it’s much greater than it
would be in some other Asian countries. He did say that the environmental
impact of any project is a very strong concern. There is a requirement to carry
out an environmental impact survey before any project is started.
The Indian government is very keen on making sure that all new projects are of a
low environmental impact and to try and keep the air quality as good as possible.
He said that Mott MacDonald have a very high safety standard with their
employees. Safety is a priority, as is the training of operators to make sure they
are operating in a safe environment.
Company Name: National Highways Authority of India
I was unable to make a personal visit to NHAI due to their week long conference
held during my visit. Listed below are some details of the NHAI extracted from
its website. The NHAI was cited by a number of companies that I visited as a
key agency in the awarding of infrastructure projects.
Website: www.nhai.org
Lists of contractors who have been awarded contracts by NHAI can be found on
their website at http://www.nhai.org/listnhdpphase1.asp.
The Indian Road The main ongoing road building projects underway in India are the Golden
Quadrilateral, linking Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta and the North/South
Network: (Srinagar to Cochin and Kanniakumari) and East/West Corridors (Porbandar to
Silchar).
Indian road network of 33 lakh Km.(one Lakh = 100,000) is second largest in the
world and consists of :
Length(In Km)
Expressways 200
National Highways 66,590
State Highways 1,31,899
Major District Roads 4,67,763
Rural and Other Roads 26,50,000
Total Length 33 Lakhs Kms (Approx)
Modal Shift
About 65% of freight and 80% passenger traffic is carried by the roads.
National Highways constitute only about 2% of the road network but carry about
40% of the total road traffic.
The number of vehicles has been growing at an average pace of 10-16% per
annum over the last five years.
Status of India’s National Highways as on 30th April 2008
NHAI – Mandate: TheNational Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is mandated to implement the
National Highways Development Project (NHDP), which is India's largest ever
highways project. World-class roads with uninterrupted traffic flow.
The National Highways have a total length of 66,590 km to serve as the arterial
network of the country. The development of National Highways is the
responsibility of the Government of India.
NHAI Policy • Government will carry out all preparatory work including land acquisition and
utility removal. Right of way (ROW) to be made available to concessionaires.
Initiatives for
• NHAI / GOI to provide capital grant up to 40% of project cost to enhance
Attracting Private viability on a case to case basis.
Investment: • 100% tax exemption for 5 years and 30% relief for next 5 years, which may
be availed of in 20 years.
• Concession period allowed up to 30 years.
• Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 based on UNICITRAL provisions.
• In BOT projects entrepreneur are allowed to collect and retain tolls.
• Duty free import of specified modern high capacity equipment for highway
construction.
Tendering and The NHAI controls the tendering and procurement process for all infrastructure
projects under its auspices. Full details can be found at
Procurement: www.nhai.org/procurement_current.asp - which is updated daily.
Lists of contractors who have been awarded contracts by NHAI can be found on
their web site at http://www.nhai.org/listnhdpphase1.asp.
Final selection:
If a project is funded by a Multilateral funding agency like World Bank, ADB,
selection is with consultation / concurrence of the funding organisation. For other
types of projects selection is as per standards work procedures.
Different Procurement Procedures
International Competitive Bidding(ICB)
Projects financed by international lending agencies & for larger projects for which
sufficient nos. of domestic consultants /contractors/consortium are not available.
Local (National) Competitive Bidding (LCB/NCB)
Projects financed by NHAI (in general)
Consultancy Services
Technical Proposal
• Background information ,experience in similar works
• Approach & methodology, work programme
• Manning schedule ,bio-data of key-personnel
• Comments on TOR & Associated arrangements if any
Financial Proposal
• Lump Sum, Cost plus fee basis ,out-of-pocket expenses ,man month
rates
• Travelling & transport, Office accommodation, Stationery
• Computer & Equipment charges, supply of equipment
• Support Staff
E-mail: mail@offhighway.co.in
Website: www.offhighway.co.in
This specialist capability, offered by offices in the UK, China, India, the USA and
Japan, is available through a combination of Subscription Services and Private
Client Research. The company is staffed by industry specialists with a wide
range of industry, language and consultancy skills, and is supported by a unique
database of information. Over the last five years, Off-Highway Research has
worked for over 600 clients in 37 countries.
Off-Highway opened its China office in 2002. Following this successful model
Off-Highway Research India was founded in 2007, recruiting an industry
specialist, Nitin Sareen, from Terex Vectra and formerly JCB to head up the
office.
The Indian Service: This research service is available on annual subscription and provides
subscribers with detailed analyses of equipment markets and the major
manufacturers of equipment. Alternatively reports can be bought individually.
The Service was launched on 1 January 2008, and Reports are now available
on subscription:
• JCB India *
• Voltas *
• Caterpillar India *
• Mahindra and Mahindra *
Monthly Market Reports are also available. These reports include the
monitoring of important regional developments. Topics include:
Opportunities for Off Highway Research India can undertake specific individual client studies for
companies wishing to research the Indian market in more depth. They can also
UK Companies: assist UK manufacturers looking to set up in India or find partners.
Company Name: Punj Lloyd Ltd
Address: Punj Lloyd Ltd Corporate Office II, 95 Institutional Area, Sector 32, Gurgaon
122001, India
E-mail: mpv@punjlloyd.com
sgarg@punjlloyd.com
Website: www.punjlloyd.com
They operate primarily in India, but have implemented projects in Qatar and
Indonesia.
Opportunities for He said there was a good opportunity for companies to import used equipment
and then recondition it in India. This would be subject to prevailing tariffs and
the UK: regulations - which the Indian government varies.
Partnerships: They sub contract some work to smaller contractors to meet deadlines.
Sourcing: The Punj Lloyd inventory of equipment was currently worth between US$270m
and US$280m – an inventory list is available.
Rather than having a long term strategy for asset acquisitions they said that,
as there is such a shortage of new machinery in India they just have to
purchase what is available now. The long delivery dates from global
manufacturers did not help their cause when selling into India.
He said that manufacturers both in India and globally hadn’t been prepared for
the phenomenal growth rate of the construction sector in India and so there
was a shortage of machines. Most people were working on short term
strategies and not long term.
When asked about their acquisition and replacement policy, they said they
weren’t getting rid of any of their machines as they needed to use everything
they had. This meant having machines serviced and repaired rather than
replaced. He said their policy was based on acquisition cost and not life cycle
cost.
India is a very price sensitive market and the cost of the equipment is very
important.
Punj Lloyd did not buy any new machinery until they had been awarded the
contract.
Punj Lloyd used to buy regularly from global OEMs, but because they were not
prepared for the rapid rise of the Indian construction equipment sector, they
were just taking too long to deliver and were failing to meet any of the
deadlines required by contractors.
This obviously raises some questions on anti-dumping laws and as both China
and India are signatories to WTO, there are concerns raised that the Chinese
are dumping equipment on the Indian market. He said that Chinese quality
was not the best, but the quick delivery and the price differential made the
equipment very attractive to them.
When asked whether the lower quality of the Chinese products was a problem
with regard to downtime, he said as well as them supplying loan machines and
service engineers, down time was not a huge issue in meeting time constraints
in projects. What tended to be the biggest constraint to meeting deadlines was
time lost to outside factors like planning appeals, land acquisition and
government bureaucracy. He said the Chinese kept a large amount of excess
inventory in market so supply was never a problem. He quoted that Shantui
had given him five motor graders in case of breakdown when he purchased 15
motor graders from them.
European machinery was far too expensive, partly because the euro and the
pound were too strong and the costs of manufacturing in Europe were getting
higher. He couldn’t see, in the short term, how it was ever going to be possible
for him to buy European equipment where there was another cheaper
alternative.
The one problem with Chinese equipment that he could foresee was that,
although they had good short term follow up with service engineers, they might
not be able to actually supply enough service engineers once they were selling
higher volumes of equipment. This meant contractors could be stuck with
machines that broke down and have nobody to repair them.
They are buying machines from XCMG in China and he thought that they
would be better at supporting their equipment as they had already got service
engineers in India.
Punj Lloyd bring in all cranes second hand from Japan. This is because in
Japan cranes are only allowed to work so many thousand hours before they
have to either be reconditioned or stop being used in Japan. Therefore they
are shipped to India and reconditioned and then bought by contractors.
Brands included Tadano cranes and Sumitomo.
Punj Lloyd are also buying equipment from Russia, which they felt was a
booming source of construction equipment. He visited Russia almost every
month to talk to new suppliers. He said the big problem with buying anything
from Russia, as also in China, was that they can’t speak any English, but the
fact that Russian equipment was 50% cheaper than global kit got round that
problem. They were buying tractors and 110 pipe-laying machines from
Russia.
Other Comments It was hard to have a long term planning strategy for the company because the
sector was subject to continuous change. Every time the national or a state
from Mr Garg and government changed, then projects tended to get halted and altered, so it was
Mr Venkatachalam: very difficult to have any kind of long term vision for the company.
Punj Lloyd was growing rapidly at an average of 40% per annum and so have
an ongoing need for capital equipment.
There is a very small resale market because a) contractors are not selling any
of their assets and b) the equipment that was finally got rid of by contractors
tended to be virtually worn out and needed completely reconditioning because
of the working conditions in the market. The machines tend to work in
extremes of temperature and they are pushed to the very limits of their working
tolerance.
Indian contractors were very busy and there were a lot of smaller contractors
entering the market. However, Indian government pre-qualification rules for
tendering meant the contractors had to be of a certain size and experience.
Smaller contractors were going to Malaysia and other ASEAN countries and
either buying or forming joint ventures with existing contractors in those
countries to get round the size issues for pre-qualifying. He said these smaller
companies then bid for contracts and many are successful on the smaller
Indian contracts.
He said the global companies that were successful in India were the ones who
were also manufacturing there, or who made equipment that wasn’t made in
the domestic market or that the Chinese hadn’t really started producing in bulk
yet.
He reiterated that India was a very price sensitive market which required good
after market support. If that wasn’t forthcoming, then the customers wouldn’t
forget that and wouldn’t go back to those suppliers. So perhaps a glimmer of
light at the end of the tunnel for UK manufacturers, if the Chinese
manufacturers don’t actually supply the after market support expected.
However he did say the Chinese were going to great lengths to learn to speak
English so they could service the machines more efficiently in India!
There was definitely a need for bringing in used equipment and either
refurbishing it or remanufacturing it in India. He thought the Italians were
already refurbishing equipment in India in bonded warehouses in the SEZ
(Special Economic Zones) so it wasn’t attracting any duty until it was ready to
go out of the bonded warehouse and into the market.
Company Name: Quippo Infrastructure Equipment Ltd
Phone: +(91)-(11)-30615600
+91 931 0920021
+91 098 30078645
E-mail: sales@quippoworld.com
Website: www.quippoworld.com
www.srei.com
Quippo has recently broken into the mining sector with large mining projects
announced in coal, iron ore and bauxite fields as Quippo Mining Division.
Presently the total assets of Quippo are approx. 500 Crores (USD 125 Million)
and Revenues generated are Rs 130 Crores (USD 32 Million).
Divisions
Energy Rental
• Rents environmentally friendly gas based power solutions on short-
medium terms.
• Each modular unit is of 600 KW - 1300 KW housed in rugged
containers.
• Provides power plants up to 10 MWs combining multiple units.
• Comprehensive solutions including engineering management,
maintenance, operators and spares/ consumables.
• Heat recovery and chilling solutions.
Quippo Mining
QUIPPO Mining Division is aimed at bridging the needs of the mining industry.
Potential areas of interest and cooperation include:
• Mining equipment rental.
• Mining systems and technology platform.
• Mining JV for execution of large contracts.
• Mine develop and operate (MDO).
• Coal or hydropower project development.
Subsidiaries
Opportunities for Quippo are looking to expand their rental operation and might be interested in
buying any equipment from the UK that is not already covered in their fleet.
the UK:
Other Leasing - for Quippo to represent manufacturers in the UK. To offer finance
packages for UK manufacturers selling into India.
opportunities, etc:
Other Comments Quippo presently have 16,000 customers, which include construction
equipment companies, contractors and small own to rent operators.
Mr Khanna and Mr
Kanoria: They work with major manufacturers to support their products and offer finance
to people buying OEM products in India.
They also work with global OEMs including Volvo, Caterpillar, Komatsu,
Ingersoll Rand and JCB.
They have approached John Deere and are hoping to represent them with
finance.
They are starting to represent Chinese companies including XCMG and Sany
and they are looking for new manufactures to represent.
Their fleet is valued around US$60m and they have a network of rental depots
throughout India. They are represented in all the major metro centres.
They offer a fully trained maintenance team and will also provide operators
when the equipment is rented, if necessary. Their rental fleet does not
presently include any Chinese machines; they prefer to represent global
brands.
Company Name: Sundram Fasteners Ltd - part of TVS Group
E-mail: raghavan@mail.sfl.co.in
Website: www.sundram.com
Activities, Sundram Fasteners is the flagship company of the TVS Group - a US$3 billion
conglomerate. 2007 revenue - Rs.1577 crore (US $ 364 million).
Structure and
History: Sundram Fasteners has a turnover of $400m per year of which $100m is
international trade and $80m is exports from India.
They were the first Indian company to be ISO 9000 certified. All operations are
ISO 9000, IS 14001 & TS 16949 certified.
20% of TVS is publicly owned. They have a unique industrial relations record -
not a single working day lost to strikes since inception.
Products
• Fasteners
• Radiator Caps
• Powder Metal Parts
• Cold Extruded Parts
• Hot Forged Parts
• Pumps & Assemblies
What they want TVS Sundram are interested in acquisitions for companies within their sector.
from UK:
Sourcing: They are very much looking for further acquisitions and want to expand their
position as a global player in the component sourcing market.
Selling They are always interested to meet potential new customers and are
interested in working with UK OEMs and Tier Ones.
Components:
Other Comments If they bought an acquisition overseas, their company strategy was to keep it
going and not ship the business to India. They were very keen on motivating
from the staff in the local market factories.
Mr Raghavan:
Their Indian manufacturing plants are mainly in the south of India, but they are
starting to expand into the north of the country. The infrastructure of India
provides a challenge for the ‘just in time’ supply that their customers want.
They are presently supplying in the Indian market:- Beml, Volvo and L & T
Komatsu. Very interested in talking to JCB in Pune.
Domestic sales provides the bread and butter of their income analogy - it’s the
ground floor that provides the stability for the company which gives them the
opportunity to expand their international business to really take off to the top
floor of international business which cannot flourish unless the ground floor is
stable.
Like all the other companies, it was very difficult to find good trained engineers
to work and also to retain them. He asked if we would be interested in starting
some sort of programme of global talent exchange, possibly with a working title
of ‘Global Presence/Global Talent’ to try and help reduce the attrition rate of
the domestic workforce. Engineers in the UK would come and work in India for
1,2 or 3 years, then Indian engineers would come back to the UK in exchange
- both learning a lot from the process. The CEA and CII would be the conduits
of this and work as a clearing house for the two way exchange of employment.
This would probably be web based. (Note – The British Consulate in Chennai
were interested in this approach and asked CEA to come up with proposals).
Name and V R Raje - Vice President & General Manager (Sales and Marketing)
Vijay Kumar M - Chief (Marketing)
Position of Suresh Nair - Assistant General Manager (Business Developments)
Contact:
E-mail: vraje@telcon.co.in
vk@telcon.co.in
Suresh.Nair@telcon.co.in
Website: www.telcon.co.in
Activities, Telco Construction Equipment Co Ltd is a joint venture company between the
Indian automobile giant Tata Engineering Ltd, Mumbai and the Hitachi
structure and Construction Machinery Co Ltd, Japan. Telcon has plants in Darhawad - 400km
history: form Bangalore, Jamshedpur nr Calcutta and a third plant planned for the end of
2008. Telco started operations in 1961 with the manufacture of friction machines in
collaboration with P&H, USA. It is now spreading its reach overseas and has
already supplied equipment to Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries. Telcon
has associations with other CE manufacturers such as Hitachi, John Deere, Euclid,
Tadano, ZF.
Telcon is a joint venture between TATA and Hitachi. TATA own 60%, Hitachi own
40%. The joint venture started in 1999 and before that Telcon was a division of
TATA motors. The Telcon turnover in 2006 was $500m. They are aiming to
increase that turnover to $2 billion by 2011/2012.
Telcon:
• Manufacture 14 models of Hitachi excavator from 2 tonnes to 220 tonnes.
• Manufacture wheel loaders of their own design of 12 tonnes with a 2.5
cubic meter bucket.
• Manufacture backhoes in a joint venture with John Deere.
• Manufacture motor graders, compaction equipment 10 tonne to 12 tonne.
• Manufacture compaction equipment of under 4 tonnes with Hitachi.
• Importing agents for Sumitomo Crawler cranes, also Tadano rubber tyred
and all terrain cranes from Japan, Takraf surface miners (previously
manufactured by Mann, Germany).
• Import or make Euclid trucks - 35 tonnes, developing a 60 tonne truck.
• Crawler cranes - 50 and 75 tonnes.
• Leaders in hydraulic excavators in India - 55% share.
• No 2 in wheel loader in India - 30% share.
• No 2 in backhoe - 12% share.
• Plants in Darhawad - 400km form Bangalore, Jamshedpur nr Calcutta and
3rd plant planned for end 2008.
• They are predicting to produce 10,000 in 2007 and have a year on annual
growth rate of 45% on average.
• 95% machines sold in domestic market with 5% balance exported in the
local region and the sub continent to Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh,
Nepal with a little bit to Middle East and Africa.
Focusing not on export, but to domestic markets. This is because Hitachi already
has the rights for exports in other markets so in effect they would be competing
against themselves.
They will manufacture components for the export market, initially to other Hitachi
plants, fabrications, gears etc.
Other Comments Telcon are concerned about the Chinese manufacturers dumping cheap goods in
the Indian market. Mr Raje is active in the CII who are making representations to
from Mr Raje: the Indian government through the Indian Construction Equipment Manufacturers
Association / CII to investigate anti-dumping laws.
Sany, Liugong, Fushan Cranes already active in India. XCMG now have a tie in
with BEML in India.
Chinese equipment is good for the first 7,000 -10,000hrs, but after that they aren’t
so sure about how the maintenance will be supported if there aren’t enough on site
service engineers. The Chinese machinery is better than it used to be, but support
and infrastructure for keeping it on the road is not yet in place in India.
Indian end users that are currently buying construction equipment in Europe will
keep with established players rather than just buying Chinese equipment even
though it’s 25-50% cheaper, as it may be a false economy. If the equipment is off
the road for a long time waiting for a service engineer – the purchase price is not
so important. He cited the example of some Korean rock breakers they used to be
the importing agents for and had 45% of the market share. They found that as the
equipment got older, it broke down more often than globally produced equipment,
even though it was 25% cheaper. Users were now returning to established global
manufacturers for replacement equipment.