If at all there is an equipment maker in India that can take pride in the “Make in India” slogan right from drawing board designing and engineering to complete manufacturing of products, it has to be BEML Ltd. It is one of the leading manufacturers of mining and construction equipment in the Asian region for 54 years, offering a diverse range of products and complete solutions for its customers.
At IMME 2018, BEML was the only OEM to have an indoor pavilion with no display of products, yet it garnered the most attention among the expo visitors and corporate clients who are into mining. Its product portfolio for the mining sector caters to both open-cast and underground mining, including hydraulic excavators, bulldozers, dump trucks and water sprinklers, wheel loaders, motor graders, pipe layers, and side discharge loaders, load haul dumper, and granby cars for underground mining. The company has also ventured into walking draglines, electric rope shovels, and dredging business in recent times.
Asked on the company’s market presence in domestic mining, Mr. B.R. Viswanatha, Director – Mining and Construction, said that BEML is a strong player in the market with healthy market share among all product segments. “Our products are perceived as reliable work horses by both PSU and private mining companies, and a majority of our sales are from repeat customers”, he stated.
Further, BEML enjoys a fantastic service network in the mining regions of India, he said. “We perform direct marketing without any dealers or distributors through 12 regional offices, thereby reducing the gap between the end users and our design and engineering”, he observed, while adding that any customer with large fleets of seven or eight machines are provided with facility pit maintenance for technical and product assistance. The company also offer services of application engineering for fleet optimisation, equipment rehabilitation, and other overhauled services, thereby adding value to our business, it said.
In terms of product trends in mining, the Director noted that there is a clear migration of buyer preference towards higher capacity and more sophistication in terms of technology and productivity. “We have to keep in tune in this inevitable shift, therefore BEML has embarked aggressively on in-house R&D in developing high-end equipment in recent years”, he said.
BEML’s latest products in this regard include BE1800D hydraulic excavator with high bucket capacity of 11.2 m³ and operating mass of 1,75,000 kgs, and the BH205E-AC flagship electric rear dumper with a max payload of 185 MT. The OEM also said that its mining dozer, backhoe and wheel loader range is undergoing a similar kind of product sophistication.