Well-known brand in wet & dry cylinder liners, custom-made castings and air-cooled blocks, Esteem Auto, put forward a strong case for its durable induction hardened cylinder liners. Induction hardening is a process needful to improve the metal’s tensile strength by heating and quenching. Through the process of surface hardening, the quenched metal undergoes a martensitic transformation, increasing the hardness and brittleness of the component being developed.
Speaking to us, Mr. Bhavesh Limbasiya, Managing Director, Esteem Auto Pvt. Ltd., said: “We have machines from the US and also have special casting grade to develop the lines similar to what OEMs prefer and use globally. We have our own foundries, machine shop and research team to develop liners that suit the OEMs requirement. We are also working on new casting, Compacted Grafite Iron (CGI) that will further help in durability and tensile strength of components, while enabling light weighting.”
The company that produces 150,000 liners in one shift monthly, from its plant at Rajkot is already working on expansion, given its firm reach in aftermarket and renewed focus on heavy duty cylinder liners. Mr. Limbasiya told us: “We manufacture 800 tonnes per month as of now and already have 1,200 tonnes installed capacity. In the next 6 months we will further increase it to 400 tonnes to cater to our growing clientele and rising demand from CV OEMs and aftermarket in India. Our new brand design in yellow boxes, for our aftermarket suppliers has been well-received. Instead of importing from other companies, the OEMs and Tier-1’s in India look forward to buying from a quality Indian supplier like us that offers competitive cost advantage over imports.”
Over 90 per cent of Esteem Auto’s business currently comes from the exports. The company also wants to replicate its success in the Indian market by providing the reliable quality standard to the OEMs here. “India’s acceptance as a quality supplier has really surpassed that of China and most global OEMs coming to India have started trusting the durability and robustness of India made products. ‘Make in India’ campaign also has extended faith in our technology and manufacturing prowess. In next five years we will want to capture 40 per cent of OEMs business in India which is currently at 10 per cent and continue to grow. For the past 10 years, we have been growing at 20 per cent YoY, with year clocking the sales revenue at Rs. 42 crores. We expect to end this year at Rs. 52 crores and plan to achieve Rs. 65 crores by 2020 on the back of new products, growing demand, expansion making end user satisfied,” he concluded.