Abhijeet Pai - President, Puzzolana
Mr. Abhijeet Pai, President
Multiple recent developments have happened at Puzzolana
At Puzzolana, productivity is paramount, without which, it is not possible to reduce cost of ownership or cost per ton of a plant. To achieve this, we are continously developing new products or improvising the existing ones. Many a times, we create a much heavier, more robust and slightly higher rated machine, for the customer which despite skill shortage in India, performs at its rated capacity.
This is one of the reasons why Puzzolana is way ahead of its competitors. For instance, we would develop a 225-tph or a 230-tph machine at 200 tons, so theoretically, the machines are always over-designed and capable of giving the desired performance, provided the manpower is good enough. But even in the event of the manpower not being good enough, our machines will still run at 100% efficiency, and this is what distinguishes us from our competitors.
Our plants give the best ROI in the market
Cost per ton has been our philosophy from day one. We have looked at the highest efficiency at the lowest cost, which is why, we are creating products that are energy-efficient, have less maintenance issues, are of higher capacities, and give less downtime. So, our plants give the best ROI in the market, and this is what keeps us apart from others in the C&S industry. As a company, we have to develop continuously if we want to be the market leader.
We can customize a plant and establish it within two and a half months
Tailormade solutions are a necessity of the market today. Different markets, different quarry zones have different kinds of space constraints. There are certain plants that need only sand, or they need different kinds of products for staving, and so forth.
To meet this need of the market, one of our biggest strengths is our design team who is always ready to customize plant and offer tailormade solutions based on requirement; we can provide solutions within three working days; and establish the plant within two and a half months.
While the machines are standardized, the solutions and plants are customized for almost everybody based on their contour and space availability. We are providing the right solutions in a quick, timely and cost-effective way.
Telematics is still 2-3 years away from being used effectively
Telematics is a great learning tool, which the managements of our CE industry and even the manufacturers can use to give better data and solve problems more efficiently.
At Puzzolana, we give it as optional, and not as a standard. The market needs to understand and accept that telematics is a solution which it will gain from. As of today, I think the market is still 2-3 years away from using telematics effectively in crushing & screening industry. But I must say, in earthmoving equipment, the story is different where it has made good inroads already. Puzzolana is promoting telematics with very large plants, and so far, our success with telematics has been very promising.
Our focus is to keep the plant up and running at all times
One of Puzzolana’s biggest strengths is its large team of 250 service engineers across India. We have the quickest tools to solve any maintenance related issues. This is because, we believe that a plant should be up and running at all times. And this is what we expect, should be the call of duty of each and every team member. Any other issues, discussions, fault finding measures etc, should come second.
Our dealers too have their own team to support with parts and service, but even then, we prefer to deal with problems directly and not through them. This focus of Puzzolana, in ensuring a plant’s smooth operations, is the reason why our brand is so strong in the market.
We invest 3% of our turnover in R&D
R&D is critical to the C&S industry, more so because of our very rough usage and lack of skilled manpower using a lot of these plants. Hence, we invest 3% of our turnover in R&D, creating new products and solutions only to help our customers with better efficiencies, lower downtime, and operational-friendly machines. Due to our dedicated R&D, our efficiencies have been improving year-on-year. Our crushing team is not only creating crushers but a lot of ancillary products in C&S, which has made us much more efficient not only in India and Asia, but globally too.
Exports is a key part of our growth strategy
Puzzolana is always looking to grow and exports is a key part of our business strategy. We want to have at least 30-35% of our sales to come from exports in the next three years. To achieve this, we have set up a dedicated export wing, and will associate with well-established channel partners. The latest feather in our cap is that Tata International has taken over distribution of our products for seven countries in Africa. We are also in discussions with potential partners in over 35 countries where we already have a large exposure. We are keen that we grow this space even more and get the 35% export level within three years.
We believe that exports will weather other storms, because when a certain market goes down, there is always another market that will go up. We have earmarked these markets and are already sowing the seed for a fruitful tomorrow there.
We believe that 2018 will be a much better year
2017 has been a very interesting year for us because of demonetization, new emission norm, and especially GST. As a law-abiding company, we used to make two invoices due to different rates of GST for different products such as for crushing, it was 28%, and for conveyor, electrical etc, it was of 18%, which created lot of confusion for both of us and our customers. However, with the recent change announced by the Finance Minister/GST council, to make GST a uniform 18% slab across all equipment verticals, life has become a lot easier.
2017, with all its hiccups due to the many government reforms and policies, also saw a lot of good things and the market still grew at a 40-45%. We believe that 2018 will be a much better year as these policies will begin to settle down.
New at Excon 17
We are coming up with very exciting products this year. We have new cone crushers, new developments in screens, and some more new products, which you will see at Excon. Puzzolana will also be launching a lot of tailormade products for the Indian market. We’re going to have our largest stall/booth ever, and believe that this will help us in the next few years of growth with projects like Bharatmala, Golden Qualdrilateral, road development and others.
NBM&CW December 2017
