With market shares ranging from 20-70 per cent, Wirtgen Group is the world market leader in mobile road construction and road rehabilitation solution. The company has made it to the top primarily because of its continuous innovation to its product line as the average age of their machines is less than three years. However, mineral technologies are an area where there is considerable potential to increase its market share and hence both sectors will have equal focus, says P Ramesh, Managing Director & CEO, Wirtgen India. Excerpts of the interview.

Wirtgen Group is working on its new plant in Pune for Kleemann range of crushers and screens. Please brief us more on this.
The phase II of this project was completed in January 2014. This new facility would be used to produce Vogele Pavers. Civil works for Phase III-which will be a new facility of 10,000 sq m is in full swing and should be completed by the end of 2014. We expect the first Kleemann product to roll out by January 2015. The total project cost is estimated to around ?15 million.

Tell us about the range of crushers to be manufactured from the Pune plant.
We would start with production of Kleemann screens with six different models, and in coming years, other products in Kleemann range could also be produced. We would be targeting both construction as well as mining segments.

Kleeman is No 1 in Germany and the fourth largest in the world. What is your target in the Indian market?
The first target will be to understand the Indian market and the requirement of customers. We have done this with screens and would apply the same for crushers. Our products are innovative and are market leaders worldwide, including India. The goal is to be among the top three in the global crushing and screening segment. We have the same target for India.

How flexible is the design of your range of crushers and screens especially in the complex topographical conditions?
In the last couple of years, Kleemann has launched their new range of EVO series where EVO stands for a genuine new improvement of all plant design and components, for real progress in terms of performance, economy and wear. In the jaw crushing segment, we have the new Mobicat EVO MC 110 R and Mobicat EVO MC 110 Z. For the impact crushers, we have the new MOBIREXMR 110 Z and also cone crushers like MCO9.

Tell us about your initiatives for operators.
The Pune facility has an existing operator training school for our Wirtgen, Vogele and Hamm products, where periodic trainings are conducted for operators to upgrade their knowledge of operating systems. The same would be applicable for the Kleemann products also.

In the last couple of years, Kleemann has launched their new range of EVO series crushers.