Exports to remain key focus area
National Engineering Industries Ltd. (NEIL) has carved a niche for itself in the bearings space, with its highly popular NBC brand, not just in the Indian market but also globally as testified by the Deming Grand Prize 2015 the company received couple of years ago, that made it the only bearing-maker in the world to be recognised for highest implementation of TQM. The company, led by Ashoka Award recipient, Mr. Rohit Saboo, President and CEO, NEIL, has stood out from competition with its unswerving focus on quality, proactively looking to solve customers’ problems and delivering exceptional value to them.
We spoke to Mr. Rohit Saboo on what puts NEI ahead of the rest and how it plans to stay there.
Excerpts:
How has FY17 been for NEI? How would you evaluate your performance viz-a-viz the market conditions during the year?
We are eying significant growth; in FY16-17, NEI recorded a growth of 10% while the industry grew at 7%.
Could you highlight details of some innovative products that stand testimony to NEI’s design capabilities and help meet current OEM/market demands?
With more than 150 million units in 1000 sizes produced annually, our responsive design and development innovations ensure superior deliverables to our customers. We manufacture a wide variety and range of bearings for automotive, industrial and railway applications and our assortment of bearings include large diameter special bearings for the railways, steel mills, heavy engineering industries and power generation plants. We also manufacture axle boxes for railway rolling Stock, and other allied, special and next generation products.
Excellence in quality and precision performance are constant hallmarks of all our products. Dialogue with the customer and a flexibility of approach combine with responsive design and development innovations ensure superior delivery to our customers.
We have observed the automotive market shifting towards integrated wheel hubs which are highly reliable and have space-efficient design in addition to being a ‘plug and play’ solution. NEI has indigenously developed Gen-3 wheel hubs for the passenger car market and have received initial technical approval from leading European OEMs for the same. We have also successfully launched integrated double row taper roller bearings which are already approved for production by a leading Indian OEM for its SUV application. We have developed few special heat treatments for products which are capable of increasing reliability and the load-carrying capacity of the bearings.
With emission norms becoming more stringent in our market – BS-IV since April this year and BS-VI scheduled for 2020 – the auto component industry is faced with a number of challenges in designing and developing products that are superior in terms of quality, reliability, performance, etc. In such a scenario what changes have your bearings undergone and what value are your products adding to customers?
We have developed solutions that would help our customers to reduce the emissions by reducing bearing friction. Being a bit more specific, we have developed low friction bearings which combine the NEI expertise in looking in to contact surfaces and bearing internal geometry.
What type of testing do you undertake at your end to qualify your products and validate them for OEMs to ensure they sustain the lifecycle demands?
NEI has state-of-the-art testing labs which allow component level as well as application level testing on bearings. In fact, our range covers standalone bearing to a corner module and even a complete transmission and pinion & differential assembly. Robust product validation and testing has helped NEI give our customers solutions that meet all the designed product performance requirements.
Coatings also reportedly play a crucial role in enhancing bearing life which would play an important role particularly when the market moves from BS-IV to BS-VI. What are your products coated with and how ready are you to meet the upcoming emission regulations?
NEI R&D is having advanced Tribology research centre which continuously works on coating and wear life enhancement areas. We believe coatings applied on bearing increase the bearings’ application reach and enhances performance in most demanding conditions which normal bearings cannot perform. We are building a coating products portfolio that includes coatings for friction optimization, wear resistance and electrical insulation.
NEI R&D team is working on ‘Polymer’ based innovative coatings for bearings. Polymer coated bearings are suitable for high speed application, reduces friction significantly and are ideal for engine front end accessory drives. In addition to friction reduction, they are also suitable for electrical insulation.
Our ‘ML’ series bearing enhances the bearing life and is also capable of carrying high load which helps in weight optimization.
We have solid lube coatings which provide dry lubricity (lower friction), anti-seizing characteristics and can withstand higher application temperature. This apart, we already have low torque bearings and a large portfolio of lubricants and sealing products which are suitable for friction optimized applications.
We are confident that our technology focus areas and current ongoing technological developments will put us on the right technology curve that will enable us provide BS-VI emission solutions to our customers.
The commercial vehicle segment is taking the light-weighting route with hybrid solutions coming up to meet sustainability demands. Have you done any R&D work particular to the CV sector?
For commercial vehicles NEI has been working very aggressively to improve the product performance by way of adding value to our customer. Downsizing and making systems more compact are two major drives that we have taken to bring our latest technological products in the CV segment, especially in the wheel bearing solution which results in higher performance and product optimization. Our high performance bearing with a special process allows us to offer much higher life than the conventional standard bearings, as a result of which the application could become more compact and lighter.
What is the share of your business from OEMs and the aftermarket?
80% of our orders come from OEMs and 20% is from the aftermarket.
What are your medium- to -long-terms plans for growth and what would your focus areas be? Could you also share your financial targets for the coming years?
We are targeting to double the turnover in next four years. Most of the growth will be achieved organically, however, we are also looking for M&A possibility in the overseas market. Going forward, exports will continue to be our focus area.