Capious Roadtech Looking Towards Business Expansion
Gujarat based asphalt batch mix plant manufacturer, Capious Roadtech is undertaking capacity expansion at its three plants in Ahmedabad due to rising enquiries. Speaking to P. P. Basistha during the recent visit to one of Capious manufacturing facilities at Vatva, Mr. Kiran Pandya, Managing Director, Capious said that the fresh capacity will enable Capious to expand its production capacity to 24 units per annum up from 12 at present. The expanded capacity that will go on to produce plants with lesser fuel consumption, ease of movement and installation & dismantling and transportation backed by company's advanced engineering capabilities, enabling business expansion. Excerpts:
How do you foresee the demand of asphalt batch mix plants in India? Based on road construction works being awarded in separate packages for involvement of numerous contractors, what are the current requirements of typical plant capacities in India?
Planned expansion of National and State Highways along with major district and village roads is well likely to create demand for asphalt batch mix plants. The demand is expected to be more from state highway projects where usage of asphalt batch mix plants has been made mandatory by many state governments. Typical plant sizes for these projects will be of 120-160 tph. However, it is expected that there will be demand for bigger capacity plants of above 160 tph in near future as well to undertake the long stretch of the road projects.
What are the capacities of batch plants being manufactured by your company and their USPs?
Capious manufactures 120/160 TPH asphalt batch mix plants.
We design our plants according to the exact requirements of the contractors for enabling them to derive maximum return on investments. In fact, our contractors have attained 150TPH output due to the ideal running conditions both at the contractors end and through our continuous product support. We are able to successfully produce plants based on optimized design. This is dovetailed with newer features. The achievement was possible due to our thorough R&D over five years. The long span of research has allowed us to minimize wastage in plant design. Based on our high end design capabilities, we create sturdy plants, so as to withstand tough usage. The plants based on four bins ensure optimum mixing and maximum output without any hindrance.
Since most of the National and State highway projects are time bound; what are the competitive engineering design attributes of your plants that facilitate ease of transportation to the job sites, quicker installation and dismantling?
Our designs are according to the requirement of the plants, spanning its lifecycle. This involves, transporting the plant to the site, its installation, commissioning, and finally dismantling. Our plants are bolted that ensures ease of assembly and dismantling at the contractors' site. This also ensures ease of maintenance. Moreover, the plants are also fitted with meters that gives reading for the bitumen levels and emits alert warnings if bitumen have reached low levels.
We have taken utmost care in designing most fuel-efficient plant. Our plants consume 4 to 4.5 ltr of fuel per ton. This makes our plants most fuel-efficient in ideal condition and ensures minimum storage requirements for the contractors.
There is rise in the usage of Recycled Asphalt Pavement material (RAP) to feed the material into the mixer in India. How are the plants suited to use feed of overheated aggregates and RAP allowing sufficient time to expel the vapor while new bitumen is injected along with keeping the temperature homogenous throughout the mix?
RAP is relatively new concept in India but is gaining fast popularity. Keeping the trend in mind, we have already designed the methods for RAP. We allocated a separate unit fitted alongside the batch mix plant and have equipped the unit to eliminate the contamination, make the material uniform, bring it to correct temperature, enhancing to the level of virgin material and then introducing in the hot mix plant so that it mingles with the job mix formula instantly without affecting the genetic value of the material or undue stress on the plant by way of overheating or oozing fumes due to oxidation.
A word about the technical attributes of your drum mix plant.
One of the major competitive technical attributes of Capious's DM 60, (60-90 tph) and DM 90 (90-120 tph) plants, being manufactured by the company is its 'Counter Flow Technology'. This is our own unique R&D initiative. It is highly productive, efficient and environment-friendly and gives the contractor precise output. In our single drum counter flow system, aggregates are superheated as the air moves in opposite directions. Aggregates enter on the feed entry of the drum and travels towards the burner as it dries. All materials are mixed in the final drum section and then are discharged and conveyed to the storage silo. The mix material, which comes out is almost equivalent to that of the batch mix material.
What are the requisite support services being rendered by Capious for minimum downtime, through operations and maintenance support services?
Our top most priority is aftermarket services. In fact, our selling starts once the plant has left our premises. We train the operator with thorough knowledge of the plant and give them total knowledge of trouble shooting with the known symptoms, cause and remedy. We define the problem to our maintenance department giving pinpoint problem instead of giving vague responses. We send the alerts to the contractors for maintenance based on the hours the plant has been running or time went by after the purchase. In the matter of breakdown, we ask our trained personnel to reach within 3 working days in the country and 7 -10 days abroad. We give some critical spare/ part/ components free-of-cost along with the delivery of the plant and assure the delivery of the same quickly. Further, we strongly recommend the contractors to sign preventive maintenance contract with us to get best output of their plant.
