Metso’s Up-front Commitment to Technology, Quality and Service

Buying an equipment is not related to its price alone. It must demonstrate best in terms of competitiveness, end product quality, throughput, availability, operating cost, lifecycle cost and stand to the test of emerging environmental conditions, energy, and safety parameters. Metso Minerals in its product range focuses on such parameters, not only in terms of pre-sales but also in post-sales care, including pre-guiding the prospective clients on all aspects from selection, operation, maintenance and training, understanding customers requirements and sharing technical experience with them for a long term relationship. This has been Metso up-front commitment all along. That’s the way the market is headed and we are heading it in all segments of our product range in general and in new series Crushing Plants, the flagship of Metso in particular, which has captured a niche place in the market since its introduction in the country, says Mr. Sudhir Srivastava, in an exclusive interview with SKK of NBM&CW, on the sidelines of celebrations of rolling of 100th Portable Crushing Plant the most comprehensive machine for efficient mobile crushing and screening application.

With the 100^th unit rolled out especially for NHAI, while Metso celebrates this milestone event, it also celebrates its vision–upgrading the technological status of the country.

Rolling of the 100^th Portable Crushing plant has been indeed a milestone event for Metso. What are further plans to strengthen Bawal facilities to meet the growing demand?
Metso Minerals India factory in Bawal, Haryana, expanded its production unit in April this year for exclusive assembly of NW Series portable crushing plants. Our target this year is to manufacture more than 100 portable Units. The existing bay has been reoriented for other product lines and repair facilities. The new production line is spread over an area of 1080 sq.m. The existing bay with an area of 1800 sq.m will focus on the vibrating equipment, assembly of mineral processing equipment and slurry pumps. The expansion will also cater to our growing business in Authorised Repairs. The overall aim of above exercise is to deliver the equipment in fast and efficient manner. The layout incorporates speed line concept which will help us to build different models with minimum effort. The factory is also being upgraded with latest software to control and monitor the various manufacturing process and to have better interaction with group factories located worldwide. We are adopting the latest and best global practices.

What is Metso overview of the technological developments Worldwide in the area of Crushing Plants and how these are being incorporated in domestic product range with focus on energy conservation, environment, safety, easy of operation, and maintenance parameters?
Like anywhere else in the globe, infrastructure projects in India – whether tunnels, dams, bridges or roads – will be built to ever tougher deadlines and specifications, putting tougher demands on machines. Each machine is today required to deliver more, be more maintenance friendly and should have high uptime. The equipment, systems, and wear materials used to produce the materials for building them must be the best. Metso is building machines with better automation which will help maximise the productivity and minimise the unwanted products. Metso Crushers are built on a platform to maximize performance and minimize maintenance needs. Metso Minerals are focusing on improving productivity, assist operation by higher degree of automation, use energy efficient motors and transmission systems to conserve energy, changes in design and components are aimed at reducing noise levels, safety is a paramount consideration and several measures like dust encapsulation are taken to allow our customers meet the statutory environmental requirements.

How does Metso help its clients to select right type of machines to suit customer’s requirement?
Our understanding of customers operations enables us to offer the best equipment for a particular job. Over the years, globally as well as in India, we have worked hard to increase competitiveness in terms of end product quality, throughput, machine availability and operating costs.

Metso Minerals engineers help customers to balance the raw material characteristics on site with the production rate and the size and shape of the end product they are looking for. Our Bruno process calculation system for example, has become the international benchmark standard in the crushing industry. Our research and test centers provide comprehensive test data on parameters such as capacity, product distribution, and the amount of power required to crush specific materials. Metso India has mapped different rocks available in various parts of the country and shares data with customers so as to design each plant in terms of productivity and low wear cost for a particular rock. We have in built flexibility with the machines and the process to get the best from each plant.

How does Metso maintain a level of innovation on products and services to offset price difference of its product range? What is Metso’s entire product range?
Our solutions cover the entire aggregate production process, including crushing and screening, conveying, classifying, washing and pre-treatment, automation and environmental protection for both stationary and mobile facilities.

Levels of innovation are not only through industry-leading equipment and processes, but also through the best in inspections, wear part replacement, maintenance and repair and training. We deliver the best in terms of long term performance to offset price differentiation, because we believe fewer failures and less downtime mean better life cycle productivity and more profitable business for our customers. Being industry leader, Metso by far have the largest varities of plant in the field and also the knowledge base which is hard to match. All this knowledge translates into customers benefit and lowest life cycle cost for the customer. Metso mainly operates in size reduction machines, dry and wet classification machines, vibrating equipment, fixed, portable and mobile crushing and screening plants and in customer services both in hardware and software.

Demolition and recycling is an emerging new area of application for Mobile Crushers. What are business prospects in this area and how Metso is promoting application of Mobile Crushers in this area?
Factors such as global infrastructure development and high metal prices have increased mining and aggregates production, as well as the recycling of metals. This means, there will be greater demand for Metso Minerals equipment and services, and higher expectations on the part of our customers.

Recycling though is at a nascent stage in the country at this point in time is set to grow as we see more regulations and the fact that ageing of vehicles and such factors are still not at a point where Recycling starts converting into a high volume business segment. We are though confident that this would be a new segment for us in a few years from now.