Dr. Michael Beck, Head of Engineering and Key Account Management, Pneumatics for Heavy Commercial Vehicles, and Ms. Sarah Ognibeni, Marketing and Communication, Public Relations, Aventics GmbH
Earlier this year, in March, the world pneumatics market saw a major transformational development with the creation of a new stand-alone company named ‘Aventics’ out of the former pneumatics business unit of Bosch Rexroth. As a result of the change of ownership, the new medium-sized company is ready to take on competition around the world. The German company is one of the front-runners in the pneumatics field on a global scale with a greater focus on the Asian market aimed particularly at enlarging its presence in India.
Aventics is a globally active manufacturer of pneumatic components and systems, apart from being a specialist supplier of drive and control solutions for the marine and commercial vehicle segments as well as inverted tooth chains for production processes. The Truck Division at Aventics offers well-proven, high-volume and customer-adapted valves and cylinders for trucks and buses. The company has extensive experience in the development and manufacture of valves for transmission control, and also focuses on engine, turbo-charger and clutch control. In addition to manufacturing locations at Laatzen near Hanover and Gronau/Leine (Germany), Bonneville (France), Eger (Hungary), Lexington (USA) and Changzhou (China), it has an extensive sales network and is represented in more than 40 countries worldwide.
Aventics valves are suitable for heavy-duty engines ranging from 9 to 16 L capacity and also for clutch and gearbox applications. The company works with world renowned brands in the truck segment such as Volvo, Daimler, Scania, MAN, DAF and Renault, as also with other brands in the North American market like Mack and Detroit Diesel. The pneumatic specialist also supplies to the leading German engine manufacturer Deutz and to top names in the transmission segment like ZF, Eaton, Voith and many other Tier-I product manufactures.
In India, Aventics has penetrated the truck market by bagging orders from the two largest players in the country – Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland. It continues to try and expand its customer base in India.
In a tête-à-tête with MOTORINDIA, Dr. Michael Beck, Head of Engineering and Key Account Management, Pneumatics for Heavy Commercial Vehicles, Aventics GmbH, says: “We got in touch with Tata Motors, our first truck customer in India, seven years back and had launched a product for them around four years ago. We are currently in the ramp-up phase with Ashok Leyland for a product we had developed around half-a-year back. We have also had discussions with Volvo-Eicher and BharatBenz and hope they would come to us with some good orders.”
Focus on Asia
Following its separation from Bosch Rexroth, Aventics currently has around 2,100 employees worldwide. The new outfit is focusing on expanding its presence in the US and in the Asian region by penetrating further into key markets like China and India. “The US, China and India are our major target markets at the moment. We are working on understanding the requirements of local customers and will try to cater to their demands with suitable products either directly or through joint venture partners. We are focusing on discussing with some major engine makers and also OEMs and Tier-I suppliers in China. We have been successful in Europe by catering to high quality product demand and will use our experience and expertise to grow in the Asian market as well”, adds Mr. Beck.
The Indian and Chinese markets have a lot of similarities in terms of slowly but surely graduating from focusing on just product cost to a more quality-oriented approach. With the Prime Minister’s ‘Make in India’ initiative making waves in the automotive sector, Aventics has set its sights on the huge export opportunities in the country. It also expects the quality standard of India-made products to reach the global level in future. “We see a clear trend towards demand for higher quality, better reliability and more environment-friendly products in India. We will see India-made trucks exported to developed global markets in future which is a big potential for us to tap with our high-quality products, especially because for global markets the products should definitely be of the best quality”, he asserts.
At present, Aventics’ products for the Indian market are imported from its plant in Hungary. The company delivers close to 30,000 valves to Tata Motors annually, while the volume for Ashok Leyland is expected to reach around 5,000 units this year. Moving forward, the company aims to build on its existing business and expand its customer base in the Indian market. “Our plan for India would be to establish good relationship with our existing and potential customers and also bag orders from new customers”, signs off Mr. Beck.
