Potain Cranes India: Increasing Localization
Prashant Suryavanshi, Managing Director
We are witnessing a steady revival in demand for tower cranes this year as compared to 2021 – led by fresh acquisitions and pent-up demand. In fact, demand has been up by 10-15 percent, so much so that we have already sold the highest number of cranes this year. We expect this momentum to continue in 2023 as well, which will be led by demand for tower cranes of 5, 8, and 10 tons, and even higher capacity. We are getting a lot of enquiries from metro cities and also from tier II and III cities.
We are producing both the lighter segment 5-ton tower cranes and the higher capacity 10 ton at our facility in Pune. To meet the requirements for even higher capacity tower cranes, we have begun local manufacturing of the 20-ton. Local manufacturing gives us the advantage of price competitiveness, plus we can offer a wider range with high-end features.
In the future, we will consider manufacturing tower cranes of 25 -30 - 40 tons as we foresee sizeable demand for them. Presently, we are importing the 25-ton from our facilities abroad. Demand for the higher capacity tower cranes will come from greenfield industrial construction projects, especially for the construction of cooling towers, metros, airports, and other projects that require cranes for super structure construction. One of the major demand areas will be for pylon erection in cable stayed bridges.
Our strategy for positioning our higher capacity cranes for the Indian infrastructure construction market will be to localize them to a greater extent, and bring a balance in their pricing and global quality, as per European standards.
We have begun fabricating the cranes at our Pune facility with more localized content, though we will continue to import the critical electronics, control systems, and some vital parts of the towers and jib, from Germany, France, and China. Since Potain tower cranes are based on European design standards, they are sturdier and give fail-safe performance, even while working on free-standing heights. They have greater rigidity due to the pin type masts, and the compact design of the jib and mast makes the cranes easier to transport. As regards safety, their control system enables smoother and safer lifting and slewing operations.
We will also enhance our support to customers. As per our policy, our new dealer will have complete cooperation from us in planning the future road map for product support and services.
We have aligned our India dealership model along the lines of our global model, that is, the national dealer for a country. Our new dealer ‘Klaus World Equipment’ is based in Pune and with a single dealer, we will have more control over the business and give better support to customers. The dealer will also set up a dedicated team of no less than 40 service engineers.
NBM&CW JANUARY 2023
