The six-year-old Casappa Hydraulics India was born with an idea to provide cast iron products to the CE sector.
ExpertSpeak – Mr. Preston Miranda, GM – Casappa Hydraulics India, shares: “Casappa is working in the niche area of producing cast iron products like pump motors, conveyor systems and trucked mounted systems for the construction industry. We feel there are limited players in this segment, it is an opportunity for us to support the industry and to grow simultaneously as well.”
BizScope – Casappa India, though caters to only the Indian industry, does not manufacture locally. Its global parent which has its manufacturing footprints in China, Japan and South Korea is in the process of consolidating its Asian market. He says: “We had plans to set up manufacturing in India a couple of years ago, but shelved it because the market dipped. Now when we will set up anytime in future, we will do it differently from how we did it in other places. We probably will do machining processes at the suppliers’ end and perform assembling and testing too. This way we can cut down on our investment and time drastically.”
Product Highlight – Casappa India is looking at shaking the pump, motor and controls for the hydraulics market in a planned and strategic method. Mr. Miranda explains: “Most customers in India are happy to work with basic pumps which do not have electronics as part of their DNAs. But you see all our automobiles are electronic-controlled. So we are looking at modifying the idea by offering top-end systems with complete electronics.”
USP – Casappa offers mounted systems which, according to Mr. Miranda, is still a highly niche market. He shares: “We also work with truck-mounted cranes but they have smaller capacities and are used for small movements in construction sites for lifting and moving loads. Our USP is that we take the equipment to the job. Earlier we would take an all-rounder kind of equipment. But now we are going into specific machines like Slew Cranes which are being well accepted in the market. There are higher capacity cranes and loaders too that are doing well.”
Market Ready – Casappa India is already supplying to loaders, backhoe loaders, skid-steer loaders, cranes, mining equipment and motor graders.
Casappa smart power systems offer electronic load sensing and electronic controllers that come equipped with specific modes of the vehicle and can control the fuel consumption.
Mr. Miranda offers an example: “In a backhoe loader, the operator may select engine in max mode but may not utilize functions to optimum. But with our product, he will have the option of setting it to economy mode where he can save three litres of fuel per hour. There are several modes that are at his disposal like standard, economy, power, and power booster modes so that if he has an extra tough job to perform then he can use the power booster mode. And the best part is all this is available electronically.”
Challenge – The most crucial of all challenges that Casappa India faces today is the go-ahead from the market even though the company is ready with the product. When it does, Casappa India may put down its manufacturing roots in ‘Pune and Bangalore are on the cards’, and that is when it can realise its dream of shaking up the hydraulics market well and good.