Kaushik Engineering Looking for Foreign Partners

Riding on its success in domestic and overseas markets, the four and half decades old company, Kaushik Engineering, is looking for foreign partners for technical collaboration to strengthen further its products range. The company is going in a big way to make its hold stronger by focusing on asphalt batch mix plants of higher capacity which are a better option than prevalent drum mix plants due to various important environmental considerations. Simultaneously, it is all set to introduce exclusive dealership arrangements for sales and marketing of its construction equipment range, says Mr. Saumil Shah, Director Business Development in an interaction with NBM&CW.

According to Mr. Shah, Kaushik's original product range included asphalt equipment for making roads and subsequently grew into manufacturing equipment for the concrete industry and has recently added Road Sweepers to its product line. Our current focus is now on designing asphalt batch mix plants which are of higher capacity that can generate revenue for us five times more than the drum mix plant. Our engineers are working brilliantly on the design and it is hoped that they will finalize it within few months, he added.

As of now, the company has no significant collaborations with outside partners but we are looking for foreign partners for technical collaborations on a joint venture basis and are also courting companies to work with us on the basis of exclusive dealership agreements for sales in specific regions. We anticipate that implementation of either of the plans will lead to the firm possibilities for our future growth, Mr Saumil affirms.

He informed that most of the developed countries are using only batch-mix plants, opposed to drum mix plants. We expect that it is also going to be the future of India as the country started growing and becoming more developed day by day. Furthermore, with the government regulation which is coming in, will become obligatory for big projects to use asphalt batch mix plants in place of drum mix plants. So, developing our business in this area will become vital for our continued growth in the future.

In the past two-three years, we have seen India, Brazil and China emerging as major global players to a much greater extent than ever before. Now more companies are entering into the Indian market that means stiff competition ahead. Small companies that are working in specific niches, are always going to be around. But medium sized companies like ours, are either going to disappear or will merge with the larger companies which are coming in. So, we have an option that either we should focus on a very specific area, working with a select group of customers, or we should grow rapidly so that we can compete with the multinational companies and then we can plan to grow and remain the decorator of our own destiny.

Our company is increasing its geographical presence not only in India but also in the overseas markets. At present, our products are exported to South Asian, African and Middle East countries and recently to Europe as well. The company entered into the European market by selling its plant in Poland. Around 50% of its products are sold in export market and it is aggressively promoting the sales of its products in the Latin American and Eastern European markets, he said.

Talking about company's focus on Quality control measures to ensure quality products, Mr Saumil said, our company has ISO 9001 Certification which thoroughly ensures strict quality requirement needed. The materials that enter our factory go through an inspection as per our specification, and every material is inspected first against purchase order and then passed to the store. During the manufacturing process also, our engineers inspect all machines under their control, and this process continues until the end of the manufacturing cycle. We also send customer feedback forms once the plant is installed on site, he added.

Environmental considerations are another important factor for the future. In India, the most popular method is wet dust type pollution control but in developed countries, a bag house type filter unit is used, which is more effective and can redirect what it collects back into the plant. India and other developing countries cannot yet afford this type of facility but as they move towards working with big plants like Asphalt Batch Mix Plants – they need to adopt bag house type filter units.

In his concluding remarks, he said Kaushik is setting up a Service Centre in Kenya to cater to African markets and has plans to set up Service Centre in other export region, the company is serving. Various technical services provided by the company to support its products aided by its well-established R&D setup including rendering, designing, and engineering support for its new Batch mix plant technology. The company's future plan is to get maximum growth in the next two-three years taking advantage of present infrastructure boom.