Crushers : Manufacturers Go in for Business Consolidation

Crushing and screening solutions providers take recourse to aggressive business consolidation, so as to avoid products substitution as sales continue to remain low, P.P.Basistha takes a look.

As crushing and screening solutions providers enter the second consecutive year with demand continuing to remain subdued, predominantly owing to sustained slowdown from mineral processing sector, chiefl y iron ore, manufacturers are exploring diverse facets for existing business retention while also continuing to expand footprint. Present business dampener for solutions providers are on numerous fronts. First, the sustained slowdown in mining sector continues to take its toll. The impact from bearish demand of crushed stone aggregates is much pronounced, as a consequence of tardy implementation of road projects. Stone aggregates business have earlier buffered solution providers both tracked and static, from retrograded demand to the mining sector.

The current depressed demand is of holistic character which makes the task critically challenging to explore newer business avenues. While certain recent developments like big ticket expansion by Steel Authority of India limited to expand its existing production capacity (the PSU behemoth has recently commissioned its new blast furnace in its Eastern India facility, thereby requiring fresh demand of iron ore) and newer expansion from recently allocated Chiria mines in Central India, newer road projects in North Eastern part of the country, required to be built through blastingdrilling and crushing, spot processing of growing volumes of imported coal or major recent proposed expansion by Coal India of Raigad mine holding colossal reserves, holds promise for manufacturers. However, they are not too sure what will be the actual demand created from the newer developments. Demand balancing is expected to take some time as the market will be serviced with existing plants, large in numbers.

NBM&CW enquiries to primary and secondary steel producers on whether there will be maintenance and operation contract renewal to run their existing plants with present crushing and screening solutions providers or new solution providers will be brought in evoked highly mixed response, same as with road and hydro power project developers on requirement of newer plants for aggregates. Response from certain bulk ports sourcing imported coal was transparent and positive. Major eastern India port of Paradip on account of growing imported coal traffi c in recent years has been deploying larger number for tracked units with conveying solutions for processing imported coal.

Though demand fundamentals remain positive for newer plants in the mid and long-term; the silver lining that holds immediate positive business promise is focused on economizing crushing and screening costs by plant owners, on account of growing production costs. This is an area where solution providers are taking increasingly cue to drive bottom lines.

Building roads means building Nation and to build roads in difficult and remote areas of north eastern states of the country, is quite diffi cult wherein Powerscreen equipments play a vital role. "Powerscreen machines are completely mobile units and require negligible time for erection & commissioning, thereby helping users to quickly go to production. Sites in the North East areas are not easily accessible, but our team is able to reach out and provides support in these diffi cult locations. The Powerscreen team provides product support to these diffi cult sites; hence our customers place their confi dence in us. Our extensive reach and support enable us to improve products uptime and accelerates the project execution speed," says Mr. Jayanto Das, General Manager and Branch Head, Progressive Motors, dealer of Powerscreen tracked plants in North East India.

Powerscreen crushing & screening plants XA400S, 1000Maxtrak & CH1700 are being used to provide materials for the construction of the Shillong bypass project. G.R. Infra, the project contractors continue to enjoy a higher uptime on the Powerscreen crushers and screens. This project has reduced traffic congestion at Shillong city & helped in connecting other states from Guwahati faster.

Another important project in the North East is the 1090 km of NH 229, Trans-Arunachal highway project, from Tawang passing through Bomdila, Nechipu, Seppa, Sagalee, Ziro, Daporijo, Aalong and terminating at Pasighat. This will connect the west and east district headquarters through Itanagar. Contractor Sushee Infra, SRK Infra, JKM Infra working for these projects trusted the Powerscreen products range.

"The stretch of the road project is on a difficult hilly terrain frequented by incessant rains and landslides that often contribute towards cutting the road link. Getting skilled personnel is an issue at the site. Since the site is far from Guwahati, timely availability of parts and technical support at site is very difficult. However, despite the challenges, we have posted site engineers for the plants supplemented with back up support of adequate spares to take care of emergencies," says Mr. Jayanto Das adding, "Our network and support has allowed us to book orders for two new 1000 SR tracked plants."

Sustained equipment uptime is feasible through regular support rendered by the OEM to the dealers. Mr. Rajen Khoda says, "Being a dealership driven entity, Powerscreen has always emphasized in making timely availability of parts with our dealers, supported through necessary training. The support has allowed us to retain 65% share in tracked plant business in the country." Powerscreen has six dealers in the country spanning across Chandigarh, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Guwahati.

With an aim to strengthen market presence, Sandvik Construction in India has recently launched its 24X7 services programme. "In order to improve upon existing aftermarket services a 24x7 programme was launched recently. This programme includes customized service offering for customers. We consider this to be the first of its kind in the industry, representing a truly revolutionary development in providing the aftermarket care customers really need," says, Mr. Ashoktaru Chattopadhyay, VP – Crushing and Screening, Sandvik Construction, India.

Sandvik Construction has very recently launched the CH 550 cone crushers that have been developed to deliver exceptional rates of productivity and efficiency. The CH550 crusher has the ability to be configured for either secondary or tertiary crusher applications. It also has a wide performance range and with its unique, patented design the CH550 provides customers with unparalleled adaptability and flexibility. "The product is targeted for medium and bigger size quarry owners, with specialized product requirement", points out Ashoktaru. Sandvik Construction also offers tracked plants in the capacity range of 200-300 tph for quarry and aggregates and even higher range for mining applications.

In order to minimize negative environmental impact, and to produce safer working conditions, Sandvik crushers are built using energy efficiency classification, resulting in less power consumption, as well as savings on operating power, thereby reducing total power consumption during the crushers operational lifetime.

Newer solutions offerings continue to remain the business strategy for solution providers to build top line products. Nawa Engineers & Consultants (P) Ltd. has formed a joint venture with US crushing major McLanahan Corporation, USA (a 150+ year old Company) to manufacture high-end mineral processing equipment comprising feeder breakers, roll crushers, sizers, rotary scrubbers under a JV technical collaboration. The JV will operate under the name 'McLanahan NAWA (P) Ltd. The products under the joint venture entity will be manufactured at Nawa's new production facility in Hyderabad and exported to US, Europe, South Africa, and Australia through McLanahan and marketed in the sub-continent by the JV. Nawa's existing manufacturing facilities will exclusively continue to manufacture products belonging to Nawa's own brands.

Explaining the logic behind the tie-up Mr. G.N. Raju, Managing Director, Nawa, says, "The alliance has been formed primarily in view of the emerging potential from coal mining and the increasing need for mineral processing equipment in other sectors as well like power, steel and cement. However, most significantly it will enable us to expand our products offering by allowing us to offer plants upto 6000 tph ranges, from our existing maximum range of 900 tph, thus bringing us into the league of big Multinational and International Companies." Nawa manufactures jaw, cone, vertical shaft impactors, classifiers & rotary feeders between the capacity range of 150-900 tph.


Mr. Raju informs, "The products manufactured under the joint venture tie-up will be re-engineered for the Indian subcontinent markets while the others manufactured for export will be according to McLanahan's standard international specification."

The JV Company has already received an impressive number of enquiries and with McLanahan in the picture major coal, cement & power sector tenders are being pursued.

Growing potential of coal procesing is being banked by Puzzolana Machinery Fabricators as well. According to Mr. Abhijeet Pai, Puzzolana Machinery Fabricators "We believe that coal requires specific products, different from the standard equipment used in aggregate. We have developed and successfully supplied feeder breakers and sizer in the coal and bauxite markets. Puzzolana has become the first Indian company to fully indigenize and custom create 'SIZER' fitting the Indian requirements. Our aim with these products is to provide cost-effective long-term solutions to the coal mining companies. We have also developed products for in pit crushing. With the solutions at our disposal, we are fully geared to supply turnkey end-to-end solutions for coal processing."

The southern based company has taken up product customisation to hedge volatility in demand. "There is a change in requirement the market is demanding. Interestingly for us, we have made these changes over three years ago when we first saw the impact of global recession impacting the Indian and other developing markets," says Mr.Pai. The company claims to have carried out advancements in its static and wheeled plants by making them more energy efficient and costeffective supported by automation options to run the plants with lesser manpower. It has entered the track market with a hybrid diesel electric range.


Mr. Pai mentions, "Our tracked plant business has yielded positive results and our first export was done early this year. We have received a good number of fresh export orders. Production has been ramped in accordance with market requirements We will shortly introduce a new range of tracked products in the Indian market."

Puzzolana's other advancements includes, development of newer machines like the 'SANDER'. Mr. Pai says, "The machine is aimed at creating an alternate to river mined sand through this ultra fine crusher custom developed based on Indian rock characteristics."

Puzzolana proposes to expand and retain its market share through existing and new dealers. "Bulk of the new dealers introduced are in the developing countries across the world. Our target for 2014 would be to have at least 10 dealers and 20 agents outside of India. In India, we have a very sound dealer network and working on some new dealerships in the north east markets," informs Mr. Pai.

The company will be looking to encash on its 1800 installations by providing products support to the equipment, backed by 150 service engineers. Contract crushing is also being taken by up Puzzolana for retention of customers.

"Product expansion is also being contemplated by Apollo. According to Mr. Kallol Mahalanabis, COO Apollo, "As a continuous process, we are always updating our existing technology through continuous research and development, like changing jaw plate design in our crushing plants to enhance productivity." Apollo makes 5 models of tracked crushers available under the capacity range of 100-400 tph. The Gujarat based company is in the process of introducing a newer variant of cone crushers through a joint venture. We are strengthening our products support through enhanced focus on customised crushing solutions."

Developments being initiated by the crushing and screening manufacturing fraternity to remain in business well indicate the sound potential of the market that has gone on a temporary lull phase but awaiting revival. To make the developments initiative complete, creating demand of the new products and services will call for actuating the stalled projects by project developers, taking due cognizance of project and environmental sustainability.

Propel is a part of 50 years old "AV" group with a total group turnover of `400 crores. Opel is into manufacturing of various high precision components for global players. Based out of Coimbatore, Propel is India's first "CE CERTIFIED", fastest growing manufacturer of Crushing, Screening, Sand Washing Equipment / plants including M Sand Plants. These equipments and plants are manufactured at our state-ofthe-art world-renowned facility using CNC machines and strictly checked for conformance in CMM (coordinate measuring machine) matching International Quality Standards.

Manufacturing Facilities
Propel Industries benefits from an integrated infrastructure facility that compares to world standards. The shop floor is spread over two lakh square feet and comprises independent manufacturing, machining and finishing units. The plant is built in line with ISO-9001- 2008 standards. Casting requirements are met by the group foundry. Propel also have strategic alliances with leading equipment manufacturers throught out the world. These partnerships have helped the company to setup new benchmarks in its production processes regularly.

Propel's other group companies
SANDFITS foundry is capable of manufacturing castings up to 5 Tons (single component). We are very much proud and have immense pleasure to share that we celebrated Golden Jubilee on 31.08.2013 for our parent company – 'M/s. SANDFITS'. "We express our sincere gratitude to our Customers, Suppliers, Bankers, Service Providers, Central & State Governments, Local Bodies, Media Partners, Friends, Relatives and Well-wishers who have supported us during 50 long Golden years," says Mr. V. Senthil Kumar, Managing Director, Propel Industries P Ltd.

"BULL MACHINES" is a market leader in India for Tractor Attachments and Bull Smart is into manufacturing of Backhoe Loaders and Front End Wheel Loaders.

Propel Comprehensive Range, Complete Solutions
Mining and construction are two industries that put the pressure on rugged design and relentless performance. Propel has dedicated resources to cater to large scale infrastructure projects. Propel products comprises a comprehensive range of Jaw Crushers, Cone Crushers, Vertical Shaft Impactors, Sand Washers, Feeders, and Vibrating Screens etc.

Propel Sand washer consists of wide decantation tank in which twin row bucket wheel arrangement is positioned. The rotating bucket wheel carries the input sand in the perforated buckets. Due to the agitation created by moving the material inside the water, the fines get separated and are carried by the free flowing water through spill way to the sedimentation tank from where the water is recycled. The washed material is delivered to dewatering screen which delivers the washed sand on to the conveyor. The good material if any moved along with water is pushed back into the bucket area by the spiral. The extracted water from dewatering screen goes back in to the decantation tank as the dewatering screen is integral part of it. Specially constructed motor & gearbox ensure reliable maintenance free operation. The bucket wheel speed can be controlled through VFD (Variable Frequency Drive) as per the washing quality needed.

Visit Propel at EXCON From 20-11-2013 to 24-11-2013 at Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, Bengaluru, Stall No: OD 48 & OD 50. The company shall be launching new series of crushers.