Offering customised and opti?mised specifications at the most competitive prices and with the shortest delivery period makes us preferred choice of customers. We focus on continuous enhancement of manu?facturing and manpower resources, ope?rating with optimised design while maintaining the high quality standards, says Mehul Patel, Managing Director, Anupam Industries. In an interview with Equipment India, Patel elucidates on the current market trends in the industrial cranes segment. Excerpts from the interview.

Traditionally, Anupam?s focus has been on industrial cranes. But with new JVs with Mitsubishi for port cranes and Alpha for tower cranes, has there been a shift in focus?
Since the last 39 years, Anupam has been manufacturing industrial cranes such as process cranes, industrial cranes, construction cranes and standard cranes. Our growing presence in the crane industry is testimony of our strong, in-house R&D, manufacturing capabilities and strategic joint ventures with world leaders. Our focus has always been to provide technologically advanced cranes to the core sectors ? steel, power, infra?structure, heavy engineering and ship?yard. We have only broadened our portfolio to offer tower cranes for the con?struction sector and container han?dling cranes and bulk material handling equipment for the ports sector. Our strategic joint venture with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan, and technology tie-up with Alfa is a mark of our commit?ment to make Anupam the most preferred choice of our customers.

How is the business from the port segment?
The Anupam-MHI JV has already bagged two orders of Rs 100 crore worth for three units of ship-to-shore container handling cranes (RMQC) from JNPT, and another order of around Rs 200 crore for six units of ship unloaders from Krishnapatnam Port. This private sector port has an option to order four more unloaders of around Rs 135 crore. The company is fully geared up to meet the increasing demands of the port sector.

How do you assess the overall market for industrial cranes and its growth patterns?
The current market size of the crane industry would be around Rs 2,000-2,500 crore and is expected to grow at 20-30 per cent on a year-on-year basis. Broadly speaking, there are three segments of industries which will create demand for cranes in the coming years due to huge investments : steel, power and port, and our endeavour is to be a strong player in all these segments.

What sort of technology shifts has the industry witnessed compared to the mature global markets?
In recent years, there has been a lot of technological advancement and innovations in this field, particularly in the drive controls of the industrial cranes. Also, there has been advancement and innovation in the metallurgy as well as mechanical and electrical components of these cranes.

Brief us on the potential from the power sector.
The power sector will see major growth in the coming years. With infra?structure growth and increasing resi?dential density, power will be in greater demand in the coming years. In the last two years, many companies have forayed into the power generation sector. We hold the largest market share in the Indian power industry for supplying TG hall cranes and other customised cranes to the thermal power plants, hydro-electric power plants, combined cycle power plants, nuclear power plants and special gate handling cranes for hydro power plants. For the nuclear power ind?ustry, we have developed a highly spe?cialised single failure proof (SFP) design for sensitive applications like radioactive material handling. Adhering to the strin?gent design and quality norms of nuclear industry, our cranes such as SFP cranes, FM vault cranes and other stan?dard app?li?cation cranes are a result of extensive experience and advanced technology.

Which are the other core sectors Anupam is focusing on, for industrial cranes?
Anupam manufactures a wide range of cranes for various applications to meet the requirements of core sectors in India and abroad ? steel, power, heavy and general engineering, construction, ports, cement and shipyard. The demand for cranes has not been very positive in the last one year due to delay in project finalisation in power, steel, construction and other key sectors. However, I feel that this scenario will change soon as the government takes the necessary step to curb inflation and release funds to activate various projects.

How do you assess the performance of the last two quarters?
Business in the last two quarters has not been very encouraging. However, there has not been any direct impact from the current inflationary trends and the devaluation of Indian currency. The adverse impact is mainly from the weak economic scenario.

What is Anupam?s order book position now and what sort of growth are you envisaging in this fiscal?
Anupam?s consolidated order book position is around Rs 650 crore. We expect 50 per cent growth this year, mai?nly from shipyards, level luffing cranes and port cranes.

How strong is Anupam in the lightweight cranes section?
Anupam is now launching standard cranes which are lightweight, in line with the European brands

Do you have any range for heavy lifting requirements?
Anupam manufactures overhead cranes up to 500 T capacity. However, if there is customer demand, we can supply beyond 500 T capacity customised cranes for power, steel, heavy engineering and construction sector. Port cranes and ship unloaders in our product range fall in the heavy lifting segment.

Brief us about the current safety norms and regulations.
Unfortunately, there has not been any safety norms set by the government which manufacturers have to follow but there is scope for improvement in the safety standards with the drafting and implementing of safety norms by rele?vant government agencies. The US and Europe follow the best practices in terms of safety standards. However, the top corporate customers give due impor?tance to safety aspects and spend more for added safety features, and for such a customer base, safety works as one of the best selling points.

We seriously emphasise the safety aspects of each crane. Our ladle cranes for the steel industry, which are very critical in nature from the safety point of view, are equipped with a lot of safety features.

We provide complete redundancy for all mechanical and electrical parts and ensure that any breakdown due to operator?s error does not lead to any accident.

Similarly, our tower cranes are equipped with added safety features like limit switch for all motions, overload limit switch, torque limiter, wind speed sensor, lightening arrestors, etc. All these safety features ensure accident-free operation.