ATG Tires- “A smart choice for off-highway machines”
Given ATC's global credentials and portfolio of right products for the Indian market, Mr. Angelo Noronha, President – Emerging Markets, is confident that ATG will be the preferred choice of the Indian customers. During an interview with Maria R, he says that application specific pattern design and proven performance of ATG tires under challenging conditions, offers economy of operations which enables machine owners to optimize their operating costs over the span of the product's life. Excerpts:
Could you please tell us more about ATG?
Alliance Tire Group (ATG) is a part of the Yokohama Rubber Company Ltd. (YRC) Japan, the 8th largest Tire and Rubber Company in the world. ATG is focused on Agriculture, Construction, Material Handling, and Forestry applications under Alliance, Galaxy and Primex brands.
Please provide details of your production & testing facilities, and R&D?
ATG has 3 manufacturing facilities, one in Hadera, Israel, and one each in Tirunelveli (Tamil Nadu) and Dahej (Gujarat). At present, ATG has an impressive manufacturing capacity of 2,00,000 metric tons per annum. ATG has an enviable range of off-highway tires spanning more than 260 patterns and 2600 individual products. A core team of more than 100 engineers at our three state-of-the-art R&D centers, located in Israel, India, and U.S.A, gives ATG enormous strength in product design and development.
What is ATG's sales and marketing infrastructure?
ATG is present in over 120 countries across 6 continents with distributors and sales & technical staff across all major countries, for better customer support and service. For more effective market coverage as well as customer response, ATG has four strategic business units in-USA (North America), Europe, Emerging Markets (APAC, MEA and Asia), and in South & Central America. In India, we have a separate distribution channel for agriculture and industrial-construction products.
What is your current portfolio of off-highway tire offerings for the Indian market? What are the Equipment verticals being catered to by ATG products?
As ATG entered the Indian market recently, to begin with, Alliance offers Alliance TracPRO range of tires for tractors and combined harvesters. This covers front and rear tires for tractor and combine harvester. Globally, Galaxy is a very well-known brand for off-highway machines and offers a comprehensive product range for a wide variety of applications and machines such as skid steers, backhoe loaders, telehandlers, compact tractors, forklifts, reach stackers, rubber tire gantry (RTG), container handlers, excavators, earth moving machines such as dump trucks, graders and loaders, underground mining, paver, and many others. Galaxy offers more than 50 different designs and 260+ stock keeping units (SKUs) to cater to various application needs of customers. In India, Galaxy offers GIRAFFE XLW for telehandlers, ROCKMAX for dump trucks, ROCKMINE LUG for tippers, EXR-300 for earthmovers and graders. Galaxy also offers a wide variety of tires for material handling applications including, PORTSTAR PLUS for reach stackers and rubber tire gantry, YARDMASTER ULTRA and YARDMASTER SDS (pneumatic and solid tires) for forklift machines.
What is the USP of your Tires with respect to energy efficiency, fuel economy, abrasion resistance etc?
Our USP has been application specific pattern design and proven performance under challenging conditions that offers economy of operations, thereby enabling the machine owners to optimize operating costs over the span of the product's life. This makes Alliance and Galaxy tires a smart choice. Globally, Alliance and Galaxy brands have been preferred by many leading original equipment (OE) manufacturers and machine users. Given our global credentials and portfolio of right products for the Indian market, we are certain that the Indian customers will prefer ATG.
Any plans to launch more new products?
We have recently introduced some of the unique patterns like EXR-300 for earthmover and grader, Giraffe XLW for telehandlers, ROCK MAX for dump trucks, and ROCKMINE LUG for tippers. Also, we are adding a new range of solid tires i.e. YARDMASTER SDS for forklifts.
NBM&CW November 2016