As a top automobile horn manufacturer in the country, Roots Industries’ contribution to the commercial vehicle industry has been enormous. It is part of the Roots Group of companies whose products include auto accessories, industrial cleaning products, precision products and casting products.
In an informal chat with MOTORINDIA, Mr. K. Ramasamy, Chairman of the Roots Group, outlined the company’s vision for 2020 and beyond, the current commercial vehicle industry scenario and the group’s key R&D focus areas, among others.
Sounding optimistic about the commercial vehicles industry prospects in the immediate future, he said: “2016 has been good for us so far. We are positive that things will improve. The economy is doing better and will pick up pace after the expected good monsoon. Also, the Government has given a huge boost to infrastructure development. It means a lot of material movement. Commercial vehicles and construction equipment are all set to play a vital role. We are headed in the right direction.”
Looking ahead at 2020 and beyond, the company has plans to bring out an exciting line of new products. Elaborating on these plans, Mr. Ramasamy said: “We did not concentrate much on commercial vehicles before, excepting for air horns. We are now developing advanced products for heavy commercial vehicles. Globally, the commercial vehicle industry is becoming increasingly technology savvy. In India and MNCs are bringing in a lot of new technology. So, local companies have to catch up. Safety is considered a very important factor globally and it is going to be the same case here. So we are developing products in line with these aspects. We have already started supplying a few products to American companies like Navistar and PACCAR.”
Going into the specifics of the products being developed, he observed: “One of the products we are excited about is the safety back-up alarm, whose sound level varies with the ambient sound. If the ambient sound is low, the alarm will be feeble. If it is high, the alarm will be loud. For the alarm to be heard, its sound level only needs to be a little above the ambient noise. If it makes 120 decibels of noise irrespective of the ambient sound, it will lead to noise pollution. We have also developed smart USB chargers that can charge any phone model. The chargers available today do not charge all types of phones and even the ones that do can damage the battery. Our smart charger can communicate with any phone or a tablet, check the battery for its type and capacity and adjust charging rate suitably similar to the device’s own charger, thereby effectively charging the batteries without overcharging and damaging them. We have already started supplying abroad. Many Indian companies are also showing interest.”
Explaining the product development process, Mr. Ramasamy disclosed: “It is a lengthy procedure which involves lots of testing and approvals. We have many products in the pipeline, which I can reveal only after the necessary processes are done with.”
Highlighting the key focus areas of the company till 2020, Mr. Ramasamy said: “We are developing horns for commercial vehicles now. As the infrastructure improves, the usage of horns will come down. We are trying to educate the user on proper horn usage and avoiding unnecessary honking. We are also going to focus more on the OEM side than the replacement side, because in the future, the latter will come down due to the standard of OEMs improving rapidly. We are also coming out with electronic-based products for the automobile sector. We have also diversified into aerospace, defense, and medical fields, since we see good growth potential in these fields.”
By M.K Prabhakar