FAE Group S.p.A

"Our main focus at Excon is to underline once more the introduction of the FAE Vegetation Management and Road Refurbishing Technology to the Indian market, as we have been doing for the last 8 months already. Since this technology is completely new and never applied on a day to day basis in India, we need to find potential key customers who are receptive to its benefits," said Mr. Diego Facchinetti, Sales Manager, Asia Pacific.

Elucidating his point, he said that we will need to focus on specific projects/applications and explain in detail the productivity and cost-effectiveness of using the FAE industrial mulchers, road stabilizers, profilers and rock crushers. Due to the lack of high HP prime movers in India, tractors for example are only manufactured/sold up to 75 HP, we need to introduce complete packages which is another challenge.

On the prospect of FAE's growth in India he said, we have started marketing through an agency in India which has a long experience in the road refurbishing, quarry and mining sector. We hope this will be the start of the FAE development in the Indian market and believe that the construction industry, with particular focus on the 3 sectors specified before, will be the first stepping stone. We would like to see a development in the land reclaiming and vegetation management industry as well as it is one of our strong assets. Sooner or later, also in India vegetation management will have to be done in less invasive ways and without burning. FAE is offering efficient and extremely "green" solutions which recycle the vegetation into the soil and, in the case of forestry, plantations and agricultural applications, improve the conditions of the soil.

Explaining the functionality of its machines he stated, FAE machines are aimed at contractors or large project based organizations which need an efficient and ecological way to clear land from vegetation and standing trees of any height and size, from stones and rocky reefs. Moreover, we aim at contractors who need to refurbish gravel roads, farm to market roads, municipal, asphalt and bitumen roads. FAE rock crushers, soil stabilizers, asphalt grinders can recycle rocks up to 700 mm in diameter, rocky reefs and asphalt in order to create a very homogeneous mix of gravel stones and soil. This can be compacted to 100% compaction levels. Cement, lime/chemical binders can be added, also through the spraying systems on our machines, to obtain a strong base for heavy traffic, without the need to use traditional capital intensive road machinery commonly used by road contractors.

As FAE implements can be driven by agricultural tractors, excavators, skid steers, etc., it seems natural that our development should come through a network of existing machinery dealers. However, the novelty and little knowledge of our technology by the Indian market make this a complicated road. We believe the introduction must first be done by means of specific projects and, once the first case studies have been publicized, a second phase of market penetration will begin, he said, adding that FAE Group also manufactures dedicated Prime Movers up to 600 HP with crawler tracks which can be used in forestry as well as in road refurbishing and mining operations. The mining industry might create interesting opportunities for FAE technology, especially in refurbishing and improving access and haul roads in order to make the operations smoother and save money on dump truck tires.