Gearing up to meet demand
The Indian construction equipment industry is poised to revive and its rapid growth is boosted by increased investments in infrastructure development. Meritor India is all geared up to meet the burgeoning demands of the industry and construction equipment manufacturers with its strengthened product portfolio. Meritor is a market leader in China in this segment and is expanding in India. In India, Meritor leads in wheel loader axles and is expanding its focus to other applications including backhoe loaders, motor graders, dump trucks, and cranes.

Meritor product range in India for the construction equipment market offers extremely high reliability, modularity in design, improved fuel efficiency and is highly power dense. The key to lower the total cost of ownership is to offer superior efficiency, minimum downtime, ease of serviceability and longer service maintenance.

Meritor's global market leadership position and expertise in commercial vehicle axles help the company in understanding the customer requirements and incorporate the same in the product design, development and validation. It has a dedicated global team focused on construction equipment segment products. In certain cases, products from its global portfolio have been modified to suit the Indian application requirements.

Parts availability is a key to the equipment industry and the company's strong aftermarket network with more than 100 authorised dealerships ensures easy parts accessibility and availability from anywhere in the country. Meritor also partners with the service mechanics and provides them necessary training and tools to service its products. The company's specialist service engineers and product specialists can provide support any time, anywhere in the country.

'CE industry is bound to grow at a rapid pace and we are technology and product-ready to meet with the customer and market requirements both in terms of product and time line. Our product development process includes application-specific - road load data acquisition, reliability definition, gathering key requirements of OEMs, product concept evaluation, design, development and lab testing. The product specifications are frozen jointly with the OEMs and the field testing of prototype is monitored together,' shares Kamaljeet Nandkeolyar, Director - Defense and Specialty Business, Meritor India.

Meritor's focus areas of product design strategy are modular design, high reliability, shock resistant components, light-weighting, longer maintenance intervals, reduction in oil quantity, high efficiency gearing and lower cost.

NP Thimmaiah, Managing Director and CEO, Meritor India, adds, 'Being a leader in the commercial vehicle axles market, Meritor is determined to establish leadership position in axles for CE segment as well. Meritor's strength in innovation, product performance, agile manufacturing and aftermarket support now combined with extensive product range makes it a valued partner in the CE space.'