Recently opened India headquarters closer to Vadodara, CCTY Bearing is betting big on Indian market. Mitul Dave, Managing Director, CCTY India, elaborates on the company's plans for this growing market.

What are your ambitions on CCTY's growth in Indian market?
The Indian market offers enormous growth opportunities in the construction equipment industry. Within the next five years, we are planning to match our success in the US, Japanese, Chinese and European markets with a three-pronged approach that includes:

Innovative design: Our ability to design unique solutions, as well as our experience in global constructions markets, easily translates to the needs of the Indian market. We are able to share what we have learned and modify existing designs to quickly respond to Indian OEM needs.

Diversified portfolio: We provide manufacturers with a single source for motion control products, allowing OEMs to streamline their supplier base. Since we offer bushings and deep groove ball bearings, as well as ball joints, spherical plain bearings, mast guides, rod ends and tie rods, delivery and inventory management is straightforward.

Assemblies: OEMs benefit from reduced costs and improved production timelines when complete bearing assemblies are shipped.

Could you update on your product portfolio? Do you offer customised solutions?
We offer both custom and standard bearing products, however, more than 50 per cent of our total revenue is derived from customised OEM solutions.

The heavy truck industry product line includes:

• Bi-metallic bushes and self-lubricating bushes used in lift and tilt cylinders, undercarriage, blade and suspension systems
• Spherical plain bearings designed for harsh working environments
• Double-row angular contact ball bearings for gear boxes.

Our continuous investment in research and development is evident with new products that include:

• The Square Ball Universal JointTM, a simplified and smoother u-joint for steering applications
• RNN and RN planetary gear bearings and
• The FSA bushing, a bushing that lasts 7 to 10 times that of a standard PTFE lined, steel backed bushing.

Which segments are going to lead growth for you at CCTY?
Construction equipment is our growth engine. We focus on applications in articulation joints, bucket joints, hydraulic cylinders, track drive and swing drive gearboxes. Our global experience in other major segments like agricultural equipment, ATVs, forklifts, motorcycles and material handling will also contribute to growth in India.

How challenging is it to brand yourself in a market dominated by a few key players?
We have won numerous industry awards for quality and delivery due to our core strengths - agility, innovation and expert engineering capabilities. CCTY Bearing's 70,000 sq m factory houses all critical processes onsite. With forging, welding, heat treatment, PTFE weaving and surface treatments under one roof, we are able to quickly respond to design changes and production needs. For example, when a telehandler OEM needed a bushing design improvement, CCTY Bearing delivered product samples within one month from the date of enquiry. Other bearing manufacturers quoted sample deliveries in 4-5 months.

Our capabilities are enhanced by a team of engineers who work directly with OEMs to improve speed, load capabilities and life in unique applications. These strengths give customers the best possible bearing solution within aggressive timelines.

What makes CCTY a unique partner for the CE sector?
CCTY follows an engineered-focused process to evaluate performance and quality in every application. For example, when we received a bronze bushing inquiry for a bulldozer, our engineers reviewed the application, its loads and the mating components of the requested bushings.

During the evaluation, our engineers recognised that the bushing lengths were too long relative to the application loads on the shafts, which would have created excessive shaft deflection across the bushings' length.

Backed by results from the FEA and field tests, the OEM's team implemented the shorter bronze bushing with CCTY Bearing's tolerance recommendations.

The correctly engineered bushing eliminated premature bushing failure, provided greater protection for the shaft and reduced cost for the OEM.

What are the strategies planned for a firm growth going forward?
As a consultative bearing manufacturer, it is important for our engineering team to be close to OEM customers throughout India. We recently opened our Indian headquarters in Vadodara, Gujarat and satellite offices closer to key geographic locations such as Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi NCR and Pithampur. We will soon be offering local warehousing to provide customers with JIT deliveries. Longer-term, we may consider manufacturing in India.

Globally, we continue to invest in research and development to provide unique bearing solutions that thrive under higher loads, higher speeds and tougher environmental conditions.