Bonfiglioli India bagged the ‘2nd Rank – Innovation of the Year’ award during the 9th edition of the Equipment India Awards – a calendar event for all construction equipment industry stalwarts – held this year on October 22 at Four Seasons, Mumbai. The awards are organised by EQUIPMENT INDIA, the largest circulated construction equipment magazine in India. Santosh Godi – Vice President, India Design Centre, received the award on behalf of the company.

The 9th edition of Equipment India Awards was part of the 7th INDIA CONSTRUCTION FESTIVAL (ICF) organised by FIRST COUNSTRUCTION COUNCIL (FCC), an infrastructure think-tank set up in 2003, focused on providing latest updates on the construction industry in India, and dedicated to promoting its causes and needs. FCC provides a platform to promote the adoption of best practices and to be the torchbearer for all policy initiatives that are needed to enhance the importance and welfare of the construction industry and the industry’s unified voice.

In a significant milestone, Larsen & Toubro won the project to build the Mumbai - Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Line, considered one of the biggest infrastructure project in India until now. The 508 km long Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project is one of the leading infrastructure projects envisioned by the government to take the level of mobility to international standards thereby bringing about a paradigm shift in the perception of transport in our country. Trains are expected to run at a speed of 320 kmph. Large part of this high-speed rail link will be on elevated tracks composed of many girders. These girders will be the largest ones ever made in India and could weigh as much as 1,100 tonne.

Transporting these giant girders to site required special girder transporter vehicles.  These machines are similar to Self-Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMT) vehicle, but this is specific and limited to transporting girders. The key challenge in designing and manufacturing of the girder transporter aggregates lay in using locally developed engineering and manufacturing capabilities in the spirit of “Aatma Nirbhar Bharat”.

Using this spirit of “Aatma Nirbhar Bharat” as the cornerstone of its design and manufacturing philosophy, the equipment had to be made with standard tyres available in India. This resulted in a major challenge of accommodating readily available standard tyres and coming up with an innovative arrangement of two standard wheels supported by a single gearbox. The reaction force from these wheels were transmitted to the machine frame by our drives. This made it imperative to make a careful and elaborate analysis of loads acting on the drives at different scenarios in the duty of the machine and designed the drives accordingly. Various simulation tests were run for the load acting on the gearbox by Finite Element Analysis and key components were improvised accordingly. As this machine had to travel up to 10 kmph continuously for more 2 hours, Bonfiglioli also worked on special lubrication level on the gearbox cover to dissipate the heated generated. This resulted in development of India’s first indigenously produced and the largest girder transporter to be ever made in India.

THE EQUIPMENT INDIA INNOVATION OF THE YEAR Award was instituted for the first time this year. Out of all the nominations received for the award, the jury handpicked this awardee from a list of nominees.

The jury picked Bonfiglioli India’s innovation as the second rank in the Innovation of the Year category.

The 9th EQUIPMENT INDIA AWARDS 2021 was presented by Apollo Tyres; with Platinum Partner as Timken; Gold Partner - Larsen & Toubro; Silver Partner: Gulf Oil; Associate Partners - Action Construction Equipment, L&T Construction & Mining Machinery, JSW Steel, Sany India; Association Partner: Indian Construction Equipment Manufacturers' Association; and Knowledge Partner - Off-Highway Research. 

List of winners during Equipment India Awards 2021:

Category	Winners
Equipment India Person of the Year 2021	Arvind K Garg, Executive Vice President and Head - Construction & Mining Machinery Business, Larsen & Toubro
Innovation of the Year 2021	Action Construction Equipment
2nd Rank - Innovation of the Year 2021	Bonfiglioli India
Trainer of the Year 2021	Schwing Stetter India
Emerging Construction Equipment Company of the Year 2021	Propel Industries
Bestsellers - Asphalt Finishers	Ammann India
Bestsellers - Backhoe Loaders	JCB India
Bestsellers - Compaction Equipment	CASE India
Bestsellers - Crawler Dozers	BEML Limited
Bestsellers - Crawler Excavators	Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Company
Bestsellers - Mini Excavators	Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Company
Bestsellers - Mobile Cranes	Action Construction Equipment
Bestsellers - Skid-Steer Loaders	Doosan Bobcat India
Bestsellers - Wheeled Loaders	JCB India

Pic caption: Santosh Godi (extreme right), Vice President, India Design Centre, Bonfiglioli India, receiving the award from Gurdeep Grewal (General Manager, Sales – Mobile Equipment) at Timken. Also in the picture are: Pratap Padode (extreme left), Founder & President, FIRST Construction Council, and Pradeep Singh, Ex IDFC & J&K advisor, Government, Private Sector.