India's crushing and screening equipment business is witnessing continued widening of product offerings backed by supporting turnkey solutions for optimal plant operations. P.P. Basistha takes a look at the newer solutions on offer.
Manufacturers of crushing and screening equipment continue to bring in newer products to enhance productivity and build up plant efficiency, which will further reduce the cost of operation and improve profitability.
He explains, "The new 11076 jaw and 26100 cone comes with new improved metallurgy to crush hard rocks and also to have an extended life. The mechanical arrangement in the crushers with improved lubrication technology is easier on operation and maintenance. The new cone crushers come with bigger feed opening for higher plant optimization."
Puzzolana will also showcase its new hybrid variant cone crusher at Bauma Conexpo India. Mr. Pai felt that the details of the new 500 tph, which will be a 'game changer' in the crushing and screening industry will have to be seen and appreciated while displayed in its original form at the event.
Emphasizing on higher plant optimization, he says, "Puzzolana will focus on enhanced co-engineering with its customers for product development. We will not impose our standard products on to our customers. Our plants are designed, by our engineers followed by studying the customers crushing requirements. Factors like given space, where the plants will be installed, especially in eastern and northern India, generally having paucity of space is carefully studied. This is also done for ease of transportation of the plant to the site delivery, installation, commissioning and further dismantling. One of the key areas, where we have added value to our plants is designing of customized conveying solutions with appropriate lengths and heights for required volumes of stockpiles. This has gone towards optimization of our plants in big way."
Leveraging its initiative further towards parts support for its plants, the company has set up its new third 1500 tons foundry near Hyderabad. "With our existing two, 2000 tons, 1000 tons each capacity foundry supplemented with the new facility, we are now capable of producing 4500 tons of casting products per month. This will enable us to provide optimum parts support to our products. We have set up a new workshop with basic facilities for our equipments maintenance and refurbishments in Bengaluru and are in the process of setting up such additional six super base by the end of March 2017,in other parts of India. Informs Mr. Pai. Puzzolana has 2500 existing plants in operation. It claims to deliver between 25-30 plants each month.
South India based Proman Infrastructure Services, has expanded its product line with newer solutions.
According to Mr. Raghavan, "To achieve consistent productivity and yield high quality aggregates, we have designed specific liner profiles for our crushers. Further, to provide higher plant optimization, we have gone towards incorporating newer designs in our crushing systems. These are featured in compact layouts of the conveyors, hoppers and feeders thereby giving flexibility to produce the aggregates based on the requirement and also to maximize production with having desired quality of aggregates."
The company claims its crushers have low power consumption for every tonne of crushed material produced. "Our installed power on the crushers is 20-25 % lower when compared to other machines in the market. We have achieved this with the design of the crushers along with the liner profile changes thereby facilitating a higher production per horsepower of installed power," says Mr. Raghavan.
Product support to Proman's crushing and screening plants is rendered through its service engineers. "Our engineers are trained to guide the customer and train their operating personnel for the optimum utilisation of the crushing plants. We conduct regular training sessions for the operators at the factory level and at the plant level to train the customers operators and also update them on the product improvements on continuous basis," concludes Mr. Raghavan.
"For enabling our customers to increase productivity, optimize plant operations, and further cut down recurring operational expenditure, we are focusing on offering design solutions for setting up the plants. This is being done in close consultation with the customers based on their exact requirements."
The company has recently provided a custom designed stockpile conveyor to Orbona Stone Quarry (OSQ). OSQ is a major aggregate producer at Pachami in West Bengal produces 46,000-56,000 tons per month with one CJ211 and CH 430 Sandvik jaw and cone crushers and two PS 86 screens.
According to Mr. Prokasendu Sarkar, Proprietor, and Orbona Stone Quarry, "Our productivity has been higher by 10-15% (than the rated output) due to the Sandvik jaw crushers. Other than this, it has been Sandvik's design and commissioning support for setting up twelve meters high stockpile conveyor at our crushing site. Initially, we were skeptical on the commercial viability of the engineering intervention owing to higher initial costs. However, the benefits have been numerous in terms of raising productivity and bringing down operational costs. Adequate stock pile ensures constant feed to the cone crusher. This minimizes wear and tear of the crusher, which if run without optimum feed can damage the liners, creating higher recurring expenditure."
For plant condition monitoring, Sandvik India has also recently introduced, 'Sanremo' automated software in its plants. Product support by Sandvik India comprises regular equipment check up and parts support. The company says that 'special benefits' are rendered to customers as part of their service support offered through 15 dealers of Sandvik.
With the offering of track crushing solutions, the domain of Propel products comprising stationery and wheel mounted plants, will cover all the segments of crushing. Products to be manufactured at the new facility will be AVJ 1214, 600 tph jaw crusher, QM 450 fixed shaft cone 450tph capacity, AVVI 400 with 400 tph throughpit. The jaw crusher AVJ 1214 will have 1200x1400mm feed opening, which can accommodate feed size of one meter with advanced technology of hydraulic css settings. The new model Jaw crusher will supplement Propel's existing AVJ 912, 900x1200mm, 400 tph jaw crusher with capability to accommodate 720mm feed. The new products which are being targeted for aggregates crushing and also for the iron ore sector will be promoted for both the domestic and international markets.
To strengthen its business presence, Propel's new product line includes, AVC 250, 250 tph cone crusher. AVC 250, presently being produced at Propel's second plant is a new addition to its existing AVC 220, 200tph cone crusher. The new cone is Powered by 187 kW motor, which can deliver 20% more productivity than AVC 220. The automated cone crusher, with floating shaft and hydraulic css setting for getting the desired aggregates shape, is also capable of delivering a wider range of crushed aggregates between 0-63mm," informs Mr. Kumar. Propel has recently delivered one AVC 250 to a road building contractor in Andhra Pradesh.
Gujarat-based Apollo is looking to have a heightened presence in the rapidly growing crushing and screening equipment business with its wide range of stationery, portable and mobile solutions, manufactured at its Mehsana facility near Ahmedabad. Apollo manufactures the crushers under technical collaboration of KDS German Machinenbau Gmbh.
He adds, "Our new extended solution in crushing is the new bucket crushers made in technical collaboration with Ueda of Japan. The compact bucket jaw crusher can be used as an attachment for excavator. They are highly suitable for processing demolition materials and recycling." Apollo renders service support for its equipment through its own service channels. The product support comprises erection, commissioning and regular maintenance backup with parts.
Wider product offerings and engineering advancements augur well for plant owners as they will have a greater choice for equipment selection and improve their productivity and profitability. However, it will be vital for the equipment manufacturers to render necessary product support across the lifecycle of the plants.
