ECEL on Bigger Dreams!
Investing in its new
manufacturing facilities to double its production
"Our initiatives on
Lean sigma transformation will reduce the lead time in all operational
activities and increase customer loyalty/market share and achieve growth in
sales," Mr. Rajesh Sharma
says in an exclusive interview with S.A.Faridi.
ECEL has an
impeccable track record of 36 years of efficient and successful services to the
industry. To induce further efficiencies enterprise-wide, it has introduced
renowned Lean Sigma system. What does it mean to the employees in terms of new
work culture and to the clients in terms of products and services value
additions and how the system will enhance the organizational and technological
status of ECEL?
Lean Sigma
transformation focuses on lead time reduction in all operational activities to
increase customer loyalty/ market share, achieve growth in sales, sustain the
competitive advantages, and therefore improving stakeholder value. A successful
lean Sigma transformation at ECEL will therefore help in bringing about the
physical transformation that improves responsiveness, quality, cost and customer
service as well as Cultural Transformation that energizes the workforce,
releases creativity and encourages teamwork to sustain the
improvements.
The current focus on
infrastructure development in the country is an important driver to pull the
demand for construction equipment. What major segments of construction equipment
and machinery are set to grow?
Over the past 3
years, the industry is growing 40% per annum and as a consequence all categories
of construction equipment are witnessing a huge growth. However, there will
always be some equipment categories which will grow faster than the industry and
which, at any time, will be a derivative of the dominance profile of the
projects in construction by type, scale and mechanization as well as the
available park of an equipment category. Currently, equipment related to
construction and development of Roads, Power plants, Real estate, urban
infrastructure (Metro, MRTS, Airports etc.) and Industrial infrastructure (Steel
Plants, Refineries) are particularly growing faster than the industry. The list
includes: Compactors, Paver finishers, Excavators, Backhoe - Loaders, Lifting
equipment, Pilers, Crushing, and concreting equipment.
How is ECEL
positioning itself in this scenario to turnout improved version of equipment
benchmarked to energy efficiency, eco-friendliness, quality up– gradation, and
related operational attributes to meet the complex requirements of projects?
At ECEL, we always
are improving the product offerings. "Product and application innovation” is our
main strategy to remain the market leaders. All our equipment are engineered to
meet standards on fuel efficiency, safety, quality, and eco-friendliness.
As far as operational attributes are concerned, we always take the lead in improving the offerings by technological innovations as a continuous on going process. Our new series (TRX ) of Pick and Carry cranes is going to redefine the technology datum in the industry. We have packaged the new series with scores of features to make it suitable for many applications, including heavy duty (and higher height) erection at Mega projects, ability to travel long distance for inter city movements as well as compactness/Maneuverability for intra city applications etc. The safety, operational ease and product utility aspects have been made to match the global standards. Going with our “global leader” status on Pick and carry cranes, TRX series also has the world’s largest articulated Pick and Carry crane as an offering in the range of 22-25 tonnes capacity. For Tandem rollers, we are the only company to offer an asphalt version along with a dual application version.
Recently, we have
partnered with the World leaders,
such as IHI
of Japan (for crawler cranes up to 280 Tonnes) and ALTEC of USA (for
power/telecom transmission utility equipment), to market their products in
ECEL has spearheaded
important technological developments in earthmoving equipment, in ontemporary
range of ABC cranes and materials handling equipment. What is the complete range
of ECEL products, its manufacturing facilities and new plans to ramp up its
production capacity with state-of-the-art facilities?
The current product
range includes:
Hydraulic Mobile
Pick and Carry Cranes, Hydraulic Mobile 360 deg Slew Cranes (Rough, Yard and
Truck types), Single drum Soil Vibratory Compactors, Tandem Vibratory Rollers
for Dual (soil/asphalt) application as well as purely for Asphalt application,
TVR for shoulder compaction, Articulated boom
Cranes, Front end Loaders, Forklifts, Tower Cranes, Crawler Cranes and
Power/Telecom transmission utility equipment.
Over the years, we
have been ramping up our capacities. As our sales volumes kept growing (more
than 8 times since 2000), we kept ramping our production capacities to meet the
demand. Keeping in line with the expected growth in the current businesses as
well as our plans of getting into new businesses, we are now investing Rs 60
crores in phase I expansion for creating new facilities at Ballabhgarh and
Rudrapur which would double our capacities. The new state-of-the-art facility at
Ballabhgarh will have approx. 25,000 square meter of the covered area. The
production is slated to start in February 2008 at this plant. Rudrapur plant
will go on stream a little earlier. More investment will follow in the coming
years.
How is ECEL making
its product range price competitive on a sustainable basis with cost of
production going up? Apart from organisational measures to contain production
costs, what policy measures are needed at Government’s end to rationalize the
rising production costs?
While it is true
that the input costs are growing, the competition is also growing with the same
pace every year. Every new entrant uses the price as a tool to gain acceptance
in the market. Therefore, it is important for us to keep working towards cost
cutting by eliminating the waste and lead times in the operations. Our
initiatives on Lean Sigma transformation are in this direction. However, our
emphasis is not just alone on cutting the cost by making the operations more
efficient; we also work towards improving the VFM (value for money) proposition
by adding more customer benefiting
attributes and improving the performance capabilities of our
equipment.
The government
support is required to provide some mechanism to augment R&D activities
further to improve the technology and to bring down the costs of the equipment.
Government should also play a role in developing human resource with operation
and maintenance skill sets for which industry is already facing an acute
shortage. This is very important for making the manufacturing operations
efficient. Today the workers in
How does ECEL plan
to have an efficient country-wide network of dealers, after sales and customer
support system to meet the diverse requirements of its clients?
We were the first
company to start marketing the construction equipment through a network of
dealerships in 1971. Today, after 36 years, our network for product support,
spanning over 70 locations, remains probably the most extensive and efficient
network in the Indian construction and material handling equipment industry.
Over the past three decades, during which it was nurtured and developed, the
network has proven its effectiveness to the owners of over 20,000 installations
across the country. We have supported our dealerships in developing suitable
infrastructure (like workshop facilities), in putting their quality and other
management systems in place and by providing training to their manpower. We have
two training centers at
What is the existing
market share of the company and what targets are being set for it for the next
3-4 years, having embarked its Lean Journey to operational excellence?
The company has
maintained leadership positions in all the product lines it handles. ECEL is not
only