Propel Gains Ground


Having met with initial success, the second strategy for Propel was to introduce its own products for the Indian market, with high demand appetite, led by rising demand of aggregates from road construction and other infrastructure projects. It began manufacturing, grizzly feeders, jaw crushers and screens. This was gradually followed by manufacturing of cone crushers, vertical shaft impactors and washing plants to produce manufactured sand by setting its new plant.
The forty year old parent company, OPEL's long drawn engineering expertise in manufacturing castings and components to international corporates gave Propel the required knowledge support to manufacture the crushing and screening equipment. To develop the products, Propel engaged foreign design consultants of repute. "I extensively travelled during 2007 and 2008 across major crushing and screening markets in the world, to have a holistic acquaintance with the requirements and challenges of the plant owners. I saw, plant operators were mainly looking to bring running costs down in terms of parts wear, labour and power consumption costs. With the background, targets were set for our design consultants to reduce wearing of parts at least by 20%. Targets were also set up for productivity increment and power consumption reduction by 25%. Based with the advanced features, our prime objective was to produce plants with advanced global features at Indian prices. In conjunction, the idea was to deliver total lifecycle costs to plant owners. Based on the set objective, we are incorporating regular engineering improvisations in our plants," says Mr. Kumar, having a background in industrial product engineering and specialization in textile engineering.

Close Side Settings (CSS) in Propel's jaw crushers can be adjusted from outside. This makes it safe and easy to operate. The company will soon introduce 600 TPH Jaw Crusher, AVJ 1412 with 1450x1200 mm feed opening for Indian, Middle East and African markets. The target application for AVJ 1412 will be for iron ore crushing, and lime stone crushing for cement plants. According to Mr. Kumar, "With larger opening, our jaw crushers can accommodate larger feed size. This brings the costs down for primary breaking."
Propel in the recent past has introduced its QM-series cone crushers. The fixed shaft crusher comes with hydrostatic bearings and is able to deliver more cubical aggregates based on more rock to rock crushing. With top bearing eliminated, uncrushable materials through the shaft go down faster. Equipped with a heavy concave mantle, the product comes with an extended 30% life. The QM-series cone crushers deliver lesser fines and consume lesser power per ton.
"The Indian plant owners are looking for optimized operations, wherein the existing cone crushers can be altered to produce manufactured sand. The crushing chamber can be altered by changing the conclave and mantle. This will reduce the gap between the concaves and the improved production of fine aggregates," says Mr. Kumar.
For less breakage of steel parts, Propel's grizzly feeders are made of wear resistant steel plates. This enables the feeders to bear the impact of boulders from the rigid dump trucks. The feeders do not run on gear boxes but on vibrating motors. This minimizes the possibility of oil leakages. Recent improvisations have been carried in the screens as well. Instead of welding, the screens are hug bolts fastened. The bolts are pre-stressed. The screens are equipped with four bearings which ensure that both sides of the bearings can vibrate separately. This consequently reduces stress on the units, and resultantly extends the equipment's life.
To make the crushers cost competitive with right quality control, Propel's new plant is completely equipped with fabrication and plasma cutting machine. The factory has in place computerized numerical controls machining units, paint shop, and testing facilities. Settings of the bearings in the jaw crushers are done with the CNC machines. Propel has a completely backward integrated unit and certain critical components for the crushers are manufactured at Opel factory, while certain casting materials are outsourced.

Business of Propel has consecutively grown by sixty percent in last three years consecutively. The growth was contributed by existing and new customers. According to Mr. Kumar, "the appropriate product support has enabled us to build our brand and also make existing customers loyal to us. We strongly ensure that the parts should reach our customers within 24 hours. Besides this, we have arrangements in place with some of our customers in the Eastern part of India to stock our parts in their premises. In case of emergency, we also airlift parts for our customers. To ensure that our plants deliver higher availability, operator's training is given by us in every six months. This enables them to carry out right preventive maintenance of the equipment".
Propel is looking towards dealer development and setting up of a dedicated service team to support the products in the Middle East market. It has recently commissioned a two-stage plant comprising Jaw, Cone and Screens for International Quarry Crushing, Oman. The plant is producing aggregates for road projects in Qatar. Already received repeat orders for one more plant.
Propel is gaining business through the sales of its crushing and screening plants. However, one of the major segments contributing to the kitty is washing plants to produce manufactured sand. According to Mr. Doriaswamy, Vice President-Propel Industries, "With strict ban being enforced by large number of Indian states on Mining River sand, demand for manufactured sand is rising. Currently, many plant owners are demanding 2-3 stages plants to produce manufactured sand to encash the demand. The trend is well likely to gain ground."
Propel launched its washing plants for producing manufactured sand during last Excon 2015. They manufacture sand washer with dewatering screen, 'Pro Wash' and 'Ecowash' involving the wet process besides making Pro Air Classifier for producing sand through the dry process.