Rajkot-based Orbit Bearings is the largest producer and exporter of Taper Roller Bearings in India. The company has been able to achieve this due to its transformation on the back of focused high-quality design, development and testing infrastructure.
With all the developments that Orbit has done in the last few years in the wheel-end application, the company has been exporting its products globally. “Our exports are over 60 per cent, mainly to Germany and now even global companies that are in China, the US and South America want us to supply them to their plants,”, stated an upbeat Mr. Vinesh Patel, Managing Director, Orbit Bearings India Pvt. Ltd. during an interaction at the company stall in Hall 10.1 at Auto Expo Components.
Owing to its success in the overseas markets with global OEMs, the company is able to meet the maturing demands of the Indian market, particularly in the commercial vehicle space. Indian vehicle manufacturers are accepting the latest advancements owing to the changing regulations, demanding customers and higher utilization of the vehicle. The demand for some high-performance bearings has grown. “We are helping customers with high-performance bearings greased for life – fitted for life one million kms – of performance on Indian road conditions. The improvement in bearings is across segment like tractors, trucks, buses industrial application and is the result of better road infrastructure being built across the country. With the improvement in road infrastructure, size of the truck, in terms of tonnage is increasing which also demands for better bearings and that is the reason India is able to adopt the high technology bearings that Orbit produces. The same happened with China when their infrastructure improved and paved way for higher tonnage vehicles. Today, Orbit is shipping 10 containers of bearings every month to China,” shared Mr. Patel.
The focus for the company has been the long-lasting life of the wheel-end & transmission bearings. The wheel-end application is also moving in the direction of lasting till the life of the tuck. “Ours are maintenance free, pre-set bearings in the wheel-end and greased for life. The wheel-end bearings come with assembled hub for heavy and light commercial vehicles. We want the OEMs and fleet operators to realize that the maintenance cost will come down as far as the bearings are concerned. They can decrease the re-greasing process, mainly for taper roller bearings, wheel-ends and differentials,” concluded the MD.