Piling Rigs: Casagrande, Sany, Liebherr & Schwing Stetter Insights

Manufacturers of piling rigs are looking to introduce newer, more digitized products, while keeping prices competitive, as large-scale development of transportation infra projects in India drives demand. Casagrande, Sany Heavy Industries, Liebherr & Schwing Stetter share industry insights with NBM&CW.

Following a long hiatus, demand for piling rigs is firming up once again. According to foundation equipment manufacturers, demand had slowed due to the pandemic, which had put a restriction on construction work and labour availability. With work halting and machines lying idle, sub-contractors and rental agencies had found it difficult to repay the loans on their equipment and to go for newer purchases. But the scenario is changing and there is a sense of businesses being revived.

Now, with the Government’s renewed focus on development of roads, expressways, metro railways in tier 2 and 3 cities, high-speed railway projects, ports and jetties, the construction industry is seeing fresh demand for foundation equipment. The current demand is expected to remain buoyant as the Government is lining up further expansions of big-ticket infrastructure projects. There is demand for piling rigs that can work on both hard and soft strata, and also for equipment that can undertake new construction processes such as the construction of diaphragm walls.


Casagrande India
As competition intensifies, manufacturers are creating new marketing strategies to promote sales of their equipment, with some even starting a rental arm for their piling rigs. Avers Rakesh Raina, Country Manager, Casagrande India, “Demand seems to be positive for foundation equipment as we have been receiving fresh enquiries. However, there is a pressure on pricing since European companies like us are developing, premium quality global products. The Indian piling segment is largely being dominated by rental companies and small contractors who are still on learning curve . So, we are working our business strategies by focusing on specialised and challenging projects . Our products that will give customers a lower cost of operations, and providing them method statements and sharing our vast knowledge and experience to accomplish the task smoothly with right machine configuration . The machine reliability and excellent aftersales service gives us edge in such challenging projects.

“Though business is challenging, we are maintaining our premium position in the industry with our proven solutions that adheres to construction time lines , even when working on larger diameters of 1500-2000 mm. Our advanced state of the Art technology assures better handling of large dia piles and challenging hard soil strata . Our base carriers are ment for multi-application usage and with the aid of a suitable conversion kits , our machines can be easily converted to other civil foundation applications like Dwall grabs , CFA, Stone column , Displacement piles etc etc. This feature entails much lower capital investment to a contractor who can convert his piling machine or a Dwall machine to any of above applications at any point . Our equipment’s are equipped with a very efficient hydraulic power platform with PLC controlled hydraulics resulting in optimum operational efficiency . The machines has digital display system inside control cabin which shows instantaneous data of most of the performing parameters which can help the contractor to closely monitor the machine and fine tune its working methodology and avoid unnecessary breakdowns.

Casagrande Grabs are quite popular all over the world for its economical excavation and India too we are the most preferred suppliers of Dwall equipment especially for challenging Under Ground Metro rail projects and construction of Deep basements for commercial and residential buildings . Casagrande can offer Kelly guided grabs and also Rope suspended grabs for soil as well as Hard soil strata . for construction of diaphragm walls. It would not be out of place to mention here that Most of the Dwall contractors including corporates are using Casagrande Grabs.

Casagrande has also successfully introduced Non vibratory stone column construction technology In India and our this patented technology is being used for a prestigious Freight corridor Project near Mumbai “ Contractors having Casagrande Piling or Dwall machines can easily convert their machines to Stone column application. We have been creating awareness amongst corporate customers and sub-contractors on the utility of our value-for-money products, given their high reliability and performance efficiency.

Casagrande, which claims to command a very high resale value of its foundation equipment as compared to its competitors, is offering presales support, based on its in-depth knowledge of diverse soil strata and operating conditions in India. “We will handhold our customers from presales to commissioning to post sales,” says Raina. Casagrande has its regional offices in Delhi, Ahmedabad and Chennai , and close to 400 units of its foundation equipment are working in India, supported by its dedicated and factory trained engineers backed by a large inventory of parts in Delhi and Chennai.

Sany Heavy Industries India
Sany India, a pioneer of deep foundation solutions, is India’s no. 1 company of piling rigs and allied products. In line with the Make-In-India vision of the GoI, SANY India has launched the localized SR235 piling rig, manufactured at our state-of-art Pune plant. “Sany India aims to reduce the country’s dependence on imported machineries for infrastructure construction and plans to introduce more Made-in-India piling rig models in the future. One of our major achievements is delivering our powerful piling rig SR445 to the highly complex MTHL (Mumbai Transharbor Link) project,” says Sanjay Saxena, Senior Vice President & Head of Heavy Equipment, Sany Heavy Industry India Pvt. Ltd.

He informs that Sany India offers a comprehensive range of piling rigs of 70 kN.m output torque upto 580 kN.m, and has 300 piling rigs currently working at various projects across the country. “Our piling rigs operate on the hydraulic system for driving piles into soil, clay, pebble beds, and rock surfaces for providing foundation support to structures. These rigs have class-leading rotary drive torque, excellent drilling speeds, and up to 10-15% higher operation stability.”


Sany rigs come equipped with sophisticated EVI telematics suite that operates on GPS and gives customers real time data, alarms for schedule maintenance and breakdowns, machine location, fuel level, rpm of the engine, and generates monthly/quarterly reports on the machine’s performance. The intelligent engine system further leads to fuel efficiency by generating power according to the need of the system. Further, Sany India piling rigs emit lower noise and air pollution, and have lower fuel consumption.

Liebherr India
European construction equipment manufacturer, Liebherr, has introduced newer models of foundation equipment. Avers Ghananeel Molankar, Divisional Head, Liebherr India, “At Liebherr, we not only focus on developing newer models but also continually improvise our products by adding new features that provide customers with more safety, efficiency and reliability. For example, our new MyJobsite is a digital solution for deep foundation work that makes it possible to record, display, analyse, manage and evaluate relevant process, machine, construction site and position data. All the data collected, can be retrieved using an active internet connection via a web browser. In MyJobsite a list of all work processes can be stored with the help of planning data. This is then systematically processed. This provides a constant overview of planned, active and completed work processes and thus of the current progress of the construction site.

LIPOS®, Liebherr’s positioning system, enables exact and significantly faster alignment of deep foundation machines and their attachment tools. Moreover, it eliminates stake out work, which leads to time and cost savings with drilling or piling jobs. The system is based on modern DGNSS (Differential Global Navigation Satellite System) and therefore achieves the best possible conditions for precise and efficient positioning of Liebherr machines and their attachments. LIPOS® is fully integrated in the existing IT solutions of Liebherr and are compatible with a wide range of deep foundation machines.


Says Molankar, “In the LB series, we offer drill rigs that produce nominal torque from 200 kNm to 510 kNm. The “LRB series” comprises of four models. These are offered based on the different pilling applications. The LRH series currently has two models viz. LRH 100 and the LRH 600, which are basically offered for impact pile driving. Our HS series duty cycle crawler cranes ranging from 40 t to 300 t capacity can also be used for foundation applications like dynamic soil compaction, clamshell applications, slurry wall installations, casing oscillator, vibro-flot etc.”


To deliver its value-added services during pre-and post-sales, Liebherr is offering XpertAssist - a service that offers contractors advanced technical assistance alongside traditional technical support, via an audio-video connection. This real time service can be used for regular maintenance, for general enquiries, and is especially effective in the event of a malfunction. “Our XpertAssist XpertAssist includes several services which Liebherr technicians can apply, either individually or in combination, in order to best support during downtime or troubleshooting. Our customers can enjoy increased availability, longer service life, and reduced service costs for each machine registered with XpertAssist,” informs Molankar.

Liebherr’s LiDAT teleservice also enables efficient troubleshooting through remote access to machine’s controls such as operator monitor, I/O values, message stack, etc. “Remote adjustments are made only by observing all the safety norms and regulations,” says Molankar.

Schwing Stetter India
Schwing Stetter India-XCMG has a wide range of piling rigs from 60 KN ton to 800ton KN torque capacity. They cover bore diameters of 500 to 4600mm and for depths up to 150 meters. The company also has diaphragm wall grab equipment and trench cutters.

Says V.G. Sahthikumar, MD, Schwing Stetter India, “From the last five years, there has been significant changes in pile foundations from TMR drilling to hydraulic rotary piling rigs. Already, a major portion (80%) of the foundation’s jobs are now through hydraulic rotary piling methods and huge numbers of piling rigs are working satisfactorily across India, with good output. Our business strategy is to offer our machines with a competitive market pricealong with some attractive financial schemes.”

Schwing Stetter India-XCMG will be soon introducing its new generation “I” Series Piling Rigs which have been especially designed for the Indian working conditions. They have been upgraded withan improved rotary speed, higher drilling depth, and improved ground bearing capacity for better output. “We are also using more fuel-efficientengines in our piling rigs, and with the latest demand for diaphragm wall grabbing equipment, we can easily cater to all the requirements. We will also be promoting our new CFA method in the Indian construction sector, based on our strong ties with the Deep Foundations Institute,” says Sakthi Kumar.

Schwing Stetter is strengthening its operator training programs, and is laying emphasis on onsite maintenance through its senior service engineers and training personnel. The company is in the process of building a strong technical team to understand the equipment and customer requirements as part of pre-sales support, and to offer improved after-sales and parts support for its equipment. XCMG foundation equipments are promoted through Schwing’s Stettersin-house sales and support channels.The machines are currently working at DMRC, CMRL(Chennai Metro) BMRL(Bangalore Metro), Mumbai Metro, in road cum rail bridge projects, HSRP (high speed rail) in Gujarat, among some other projects.