Esteem Auto, known for its range of wet and dry cylinder liners, custom-made castings and air-cooled blocks, put forward a strong case for its domestic aftermarket customers at the Auto Expo 2020 – Components show. When we caught up with Harsh Limbasiya, Operation Manager, Esteem Auto, he said: “Our main focus this time around is to address the aftermarket. Since the last two years we have focused on the domestic market, where we have started selling our products with our own brand name in the commercial vehicles and construction equipment space. This, we feel, is the right time to reach out to the OEMs. We would like them to use our products instead of importing them.”
Over the past few years, Esteem Auto has been laying additional emphasis on developing induction hardening liners. Informed Limbasiya: “There are only a couple of players in the industry who have such a product in India. We are now looking towards making nitride liners, which are similar to hardening liners with similar life but do not involve the hardening process. Instead, they use a nitriding process. The new OEM liners have been of the nitriding type and hence we would be focusing on the same with our capacity expansion.”
Esteem Auto currently produces 1,50,000 units per month and plans to expand the capacity to 2,50,000 units per month. “Our new plant should be up and running by the next month and we should be able to double our capacity from 1,200 metric tonnes to 2,400 metric tonnes per month by expanding in less than half of the current area,” Limbasiya informed. Up to 90% of the company’s current business is derived from exports. It is now adding products to its portfolio to ensure that the customer has to engage with only one supplier. “We are introducing new parts like pistons and piston rings that are complimentary to liners. We can thus be a one-stop supplier,” he added.