Manufacturers of world-class seats for coach/intercity, city/urban, buses, mini buses, railway, tram, metro, military and yacht applications, Ster Group has earned the reputation of being a quality player in the global bus and coach seats segment. The company that impressed one and all with its innovative lightweight and comfortable seats at Busworld Brussels has been a preferred supplier of seating systems to major international brands of bus and coach manufacturers globally including Volvo, Daimler, Iveco, Karsan, Temsa, Scania, MAN, Solaris, BYD and Yutong among others. We met Piotr Nowak (PN), International Sales Director, Ster Group, and N. Vaideshwaran (NV), Managing Director, Ster India (P) Ltd., at the exhibition to know more about their Indian operations, global trends and long-term outlook. Excerpts from the interview:
What is the status of your production facility at Chennai?
PN: All important machines like foam injection unit, laser cutting, powder coating, metal working press, upholstery sewing units are in place at our plant in India. We are going to install plastic injection moulding machines shortly. All the processes in India will now be complete which means we are now moving towards 100% localisation. This will also help us cut down the production time and offer better prices to our customers.
NV: The plastic injection moulding process will be completed by April. This will give Ster India an advantage which will help us to cater to export market across Asian countries and down under, with excellent quality at affordable prices. For the export market we are going to focus on OEMs and body builders. We are sure to capitalise on our full-fledged manufacturing facilities in India and our logistics advantage which makes it easier for us to work closely with Asian customers.
How much do you currently produce in India and what is the roadmap for growth?
NV: We can do about 150 bus seats in India per month in one shift. We have delivered about 1,000 buses, city/urban, intercity/coaches over the past eight months. We adhere to the quality standards required by European manufacturers be it in steel or fabric. Our customers here in India now coming to us for lighter seats since the implementation of BSVI is around the corner.
PN: The acquisition of a seating company known as Fource that represented Ster Group in Turkey since 2016 in the field of city seats. This acquisition allows us to quickly implement our coach seat range for all the countries including India. We will have new dimensional possibilities to significantly accelerate the introduction of products into the markets as well as increase the range of proposed solutions.
How is your contribution to railways shaping up in India? And what is your overall outlook for the growth of Ster India?
NV: In railways we are still exploring the correct characteristics of what the authorities demand for seats with respect to our offerings and prices. We are also providing aluminium components like extension cups and connectors, apart from aluminium hand-pulls and anti-bacterial hand-pulls. We want to bring innovation in railway seats and are working on quality products. At the moment even though metros are being laid out in every city in the country, they use aluminium-plastic benches and not seats. So as and when they would require seats, we would be offering good quality solutions.
Till then our focus is largely on bus seats and we are happy to have been working with major STUs such as BEST, MTC, TSRTC, BMTC, MMRDA and PMPL apart from a slew of OEMs who work with the STUs. We have a lot of variations in city/urban, intercity/coach and driver seats to meet the diverse fleet needs.
PN: India has been moving slowly and growth has been subdued. Thus, as we move ahead, even while catering to Indian domestic requirements, I believe in India as a producer and manufacturer for the export market. The local market will take time to upgrade. Even though the passenger car market has upgraded, since it is the individual decision maker who is the buyer, decisions pertaining to changes in bus ergonomics and comfort will have to be taken by the OEM/bus body builders/fleet operator and Government authorities. We are waiting for the Indian bus market to mature and upgrade to international standards.