How do you perceive the future demand of construction and altogether crushing and screening equipment?
The ongoing surge in construction activity would continue to spur demand of construction equipment and as a whole crushing and screening equipment in the country. Demand would come from development of roads, railways airports, ports, urban development, irrigation among others. Led by the continued up rush in construction activity, the estimated demand for equipment is expected to be in the range of Rs 105,000 crores over the next five years, divided between crushing and screening and earth moving equipment.
Precisely, which are the segments of construction projects that will create the demand pull for crushers?
The demand for aggregate crushers are steadily growing. The main segment for creating the demand would be roads, irrigation, hydro–power projects, ready–mix concrete industry, new airports and urban housing in major cities. SEZ project development also offers the potential for demand of crushers.
Given by the higher output requirement of construction projects and fixed project completion schedules, do you find the demand moving from light to heavy output crushers?
Yes it is. The demand is moving towards larger capacity of 300 Tonne per Hour (TPH) crusher plants and above from the present mid-size capacity of 150-200 TPH. The fast track urban development projects and the quarrying areas in major cities are going in for higher outputs ranging from 200- 300 TPH, especially the SEZ’s.
There has been a shift in the last two years towards mobile plants and continues to the hot item for highway construction. However, in the higher output range, the stationary plants are preferred in their flexibility in meeting the commercial aggregate requirements of the RMC’s and concrete products in the urban areas.
Are any change being witnessed towards demand of automated models with added technical features?
The most important maintenance need and the cost contributor in a crusher plant is wear parts. The foundries should work hand in hand with machinery suppliers for development of better metallurgy for longer life and shorter shutdowns.
Going by the change in demand shift requiring higher output machines with advanced technical features, how are Nawa machines christened to the same?
Making innovations in design and in critical operational features has been a constant endeavor for Nawa, so as to meet the ever changing market requirements. Going by the demand change as of now, requiring higher output machines, we have stationary plants at a range from 60 TPH to 250 TPH and mobiles from 120 TPH to 200 TPH.
Keeping with the trend of higher output machines, we are now geared up to introduce bigger jaw crusher of size 48"x36" and long head cones for secondary crushing. With different combinations of jaw-cone-cone or jaw-cone vertical shaft impactors,
Nawa can comfortably supply crusher plants upto 300/350 TPH and above combinations. This is the target for 2007-08 and I would like to mention that we picked couple of orders in this range as well for road and irrigation projects.
On new range of crushers to meet the market requirement, we launched the three stage and two stage wheel mounted mobile plants at Excon 2005 exposition. These compact, rugged and high performance units have been designed to be truly mobile and received immediate acceptance by the contractors of all segments.
Are you going in for brownfield expansion to meet the growing market demand?
What is your existing marketing and after sales service support structure? Are you planning to go in for expansion of the network in view of growing demand?
Our core marketing set up is centered at Hyderabad. We are finalizing our plans to widen our activities by positioning resident engineers at major cities and mining areas progressively in another six months time. These areas will be developed not only to widen our marketing base but will also act as our after sales service, spare parts centres. At the moment, we have business representatives at Mumbai and Delhi and a resident service engineer at Bangalore.
What is your existing number of vendors for manufacturers of components and spares? Are there plans to expand your vendors base?
We have over 15 major sub vendors as of now, who regularly do our jobs work. This number would be increased to 25 by the end of the first quarter in the next financial year 2007-08. I would like to say that the credit goes to our vendors for turning out quality machines backed by our quality control department at Nawa.
Are any new launches being planned?
New models in the sizes consisting of, Primary Jaw Crusher 48"x36," Long Head Cyclic Cone Crusher, 2.1mWx6.0M L Vibrating screens are already in the production line, which would be installed in the nearest future for selected customers.
Besides, we have also planned and in the designing stage of new models of mobile crusher units, with special features very nearer to those close to a stationary plant.
How are the products being made price competitive?
We are adopting advanced design soft wares to prune up the equipment weights, to reduce costs. Our equipment are totally indigenous, except some bearings and hydraulic components, which are imported. We are doing a lot of exercise to rationalize components and equipment sizes, to reduce inventory levels. Besides, we are emphasizing on quantum purchasing to get price advantage. Importantly, we also are undertaking some design innovations to bring down production costs so as to make the products price wise competitive.
What has been the total number of units sold by you in 2005-06 and what are your sales target for the 2007-08 fiscal?
In 2005-06, we have manufactured about 135 machines for our plants. This was sold to various customers spread all over India. During 2007-08, we have targeted to produce about 255-260 machines that would go into 38-40 plants and individual equipment sales requirements. This would be almost doubling our production in the next financial year 2007-08.
