Shore Auto Rubber Exports Pvt. Ltd. was present at the show to promote its expertise in silicone and rubber hoses. Part of the Keswani Group, which founded Auto Steel and Rubber Industries in 1966, the company has been exporting to the more than 20 countries in Europe, since 2003.
“We started making rubber hoses in 1990 and silicone hoses in 1994. We have been exporting since 2003 and realized the potential for the silicone and rubber hoses is tremendous in Europe, US, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. Shore Auto Rubber Exports Pvt. Ltd. was formed to cater to the exports,” informs Kishore Keswani, Managing Director, Shore Auto.
The company, which caters to 55 per cent OEMs and 45 per cent of aftermarket customers in exports, works as a solution provider to most of the tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers of system/components to OEMS. This allows them to address needs of various segments like automotive, rail, marine, construction equipment, mining and agricultural equipment. “Our product ranges from coolant hoses, charge-air-cooler hoses, and exhaust gas recycle hoses, including fire-resistant hoses with very low smoke density and toxicity for products in rail and marine,” adds Keswani.
Some of Shore Auto’s direct and indirect customers include Cummins USA, to whom they supply almost 2,000 hoses per day, General Motors, Perkins UK, VDL Buses, and Bombardier in Sweden, Germany and China. With India transitioning to BS-VI emission norms by April 2020, Keswani sees the demand for silicone hoses going up in the Indian market. “India earlier was predominately a rubber hose market; silicone is just around 2 per cent of the total market. With BS-VI there will be a lot of requirement for silicone hoses – with the DOP filters, exhaust gas recirculation, AdBlue, lot more silicone hoses would be required by the OEMs and tier 1s. Our USP is that we can have just-in-time deliveries through our global distributors. Also, we do not have catalogue items but design and develop as per specific requirements and customer drawings,” he says.
With manufacturing roots in Pune, Shore Auto has been successful in converting multi-component parts to single piece rubber which has aided the manufacturer to address light-weighting challenges as well as prevent leakage at various points. “We have converted many components to one rubber piece and replaced metal. We have an instance where we worked with the Ministry of Defence in Sweden, where there was a component with 11 sub-components with a number of metal clamps as attachments. Every attachment has a chance of a leakage, so we removed all those connections and gave them a one-piece solution,” reveals the MD.
With the expected growth in demand, Keswani expects the company’s turnover to double in the next three years. “We are a Rs. 57-crore company currently and expect to cross Rs. 100 crores in the next three years. While Europe will continue to be our base market, the next phase of substantial growth will come from India and the US,” he concludes.