Engines: Manufacturers Take Innovations to Newer Highs

Miron Thoms, Vice President & Head of Volvo Penta India
Says Miron Thoms, Vice President & Head of Volvo Penta India, “With our vast experience in industrial applications, our engines are designed and customized to suit rigorous and heavy-duty operations. We collaborate with OEMs on field-testing, installation and application in the most abusive field conditions for several thousand hours during the design phase itself. This helps us to develop robust, heavy-duty engines, and even do customization for specific requirements. For example, Volvo Penta offers as standard, heavy-duty cable harnesses, with optional heavy-duty cooling and air filtration systems. Volvo Penta also assists OEMs on application engineering that includes a review of the design requirements, discussions on optional equipment, packaging, prototype installation, testing and validation.” Volvo Penta will be launching its Bharat (CEV) Stage IV engine range this year at bauma.

New designs and features
Volvo Penta diesel engines have a compact design, a high power-to-weight ratio, electronically controlled waste-gate turbocharger for increased block load acceptance, excellent performance with peak torque even at low engine speed, reliability, low fuel consumption, low exhaust emission, and a long service life. Says Thoms, “Volvo Penta engines enable more productivity by the operator and give the best total cost of ownership with optimum uptime. Together with our engineering team, the air filtration and cooling systems are validated by the OEMs. Furthermore, we support the driveline development to optimize the transmission set up, if applicable. We provide modified engine designs and technical assistance – including field tests – to ensure that our customers’ work at site runs at full capacity.”

JCB India offers engines from 56 kW to 97 kW for its BS-3 emission compliant backhoe loaders, wheeled loaders and compactors, and from 63 kW to 129 kW for the BS-2 market of excavators. Genset engines of 60 kVA to 125 kVA are also manufactured at the company’s facility in Ballabgarh for both exports and domestic use. Currently, over 2,00,000 JCB engines are working in India. Its ecoMAX engines are used by other OEMs for equipment used in road sweeping, in concrete mixers, pumps, screening, crushers and tow trucks.

Product Support
Volvo Penta provides global aftermarket support in 130 countries to support OEMs to trade in both the domestic and export markets. Says Thoms, “Over the last 20 years, Volvo Penta has been developing its aftermarket network and is now present in 61 locations with over 85 touchpoints across the country. We have a regional warehouse and parts distribution center in Bangalore, and a 24x7 Volvo Penta Action Service for giving timely support to our customers.”
He informs that Volvo Penta customers also benefit from the optional Volvo Penta Service Agreement, which is tailored to meet their operating needs and budget, with a choice of regular inspections or a comprehensive service and maintenance program, including preventive repairs. “In India, more than 25% of our end-users have opted for a service agreement. Volvo Penta will soon be setting up an exclusive training centre in Bangalore.”

JCB’s Premier Line product support program gives the option of bespoke support packages for customers. The company has various customer connect and service campaigns wherein trained service engineers visit customer sites and offer service and parts support. Its equipment is backed by JCB’s advanced Telematics technology, JCB Livelink. Says Jasmeet, “Since these machines work in far-flung areas, it is imperative that a well-connected product support is offered to customers to minimize the downtime and maximize productivity. To support the growing population of our equipment powered by JCB engines, our dealers have made sizeable investments in setting a support network with over 6,000 professionals trained in the operation and maintenance of the equipment, besides which we have a warehouse in Pune, Chennai, Faridabad, Guwahati and Kolkata for spares.”

While the newer engines variants, made through increasing levels of co engineering alliance between the manufacturers and OEM, claims to offer total lifecycle costs and higher levels of performance, it will be vital for manufacturers to ensure commensurate levels of service availability for the engines.