If anyone thinks of the infrastructure industry, especially the road sector, they think about Ammann.

– Sunil Sapru

Regional Director, Ammann India

What has been your focus for Excon 2021?

Excon is happening after a gap of 2.5 years. We wanted to showcase to all our customers and our stakeholders who have been working with us on what new technologies can Ammann bring into Indian market to help them build the infrastructure which is comparable to European nations or outside India. As government has been focusing and lot of impetus is being given to construction sector especially roads and highways, our honourable Minister Nitin Gadkari has been talking highly to layout something around from 20kms to 30 kms and 40 kms to 83 kms laying per day. That itself can bring and it has to be mechanised and has to be getting a new technology. So, all the more like when we talk about the modern roads, we talk about how we can handle the highly traffic density areas, perpetually it is happening because of heavy access road deformations happen. We are trying to bring a view from equipment manufacturer’s side where we can get to different processes which will improve longevity and durability of roads. We brought in lead technologies in India where we talk about stone mastic asphalt (SMA). There is a lot of buzz in the market to have recycling in plastic editions. We have brought this in and showcased it. We have enabled all these technologies whether it is a continuous plant or batch mix plant. We can have these plastic editions enabled into both our batching plants. We have put up latest techniques on micro-process based control system. You can have real-time measurements in this. We have moved it from PLC based system to micro processed based system. All these controls can give you that what can be the recipe and what has been processed and so on so date, all logging system, what is the quality system, what is energy saving into the system and how we can improvise on this. We have brought all that into Excon 2021. We also started off with a concrete plant which were earlier getting exported out of our facility to different countries across the globe. We started in India also. One more thing we have brought in this Excon 2021 is the burner. Burner has been earlier working on LDO, FO and LHSS. We brought into a CNG one, it can be gas-operated also. That we have showcased in Ex Con 2021. We have brought in machine side and we have a family of compactors. Ammann has been in compaction for a very long time. But in India, they started late into this. So, all our customers were pushing us very hard why not to have a complete solution from one stop. We brought in compactors in India. In  Excon, we have also added mini tandem rollers which is a 310-class – a new edition in this technology. We have talked about how we can lay the paving with wireless. You can have a long big ski working on this. This gives you better road roughness index. We are trying to educate further in the market what Ammann gives you as a solution. There are very high stakes on Excon 2021 from our end.

You mentioned about these products especially plastic waste. Can you throw some light on that particular product?

You know that there are lot of waste plastic generated in India. You can add bitumen part together with bitumen and you can inject in the system and it gives you that strength into the surface. So, the water should not percolate down to the sub base layers. It gives you sort of a membrane on this. But the challenge is that it has a specific layer like the plastic which you can help with, mixed temperature of 150-160. You cannot use pet bottles or other things where the melting point is more than 200-250. Those shredded plastic which will have a melting temperature upto 145 to 150 degree temperature. That is the perfect combination for this.

But with rising temperature now every five years you have temperatures in India increasing by 2 degree Celsius. You think this kind of plastic asphalt can work?

It is a membrane only. The temperature of the plastic the melting point should be around 140 or 150. By going 2 or 3 degrees will not affect the surface. The temperature when it goes above 145, then nobody will survive. What we are trying to bring into this is today the market is a challenging market. The customers have adopted that we have to bring new systems and processes which will create durability and longevity of highways. It is attached to defect liability onto this. So, the ownership lies at every side of it. We have taken precautions to get into better technology. Acceptability has gone up over the years on to this segment.

What differentiates Ammann from other competitive players in the industry?

If you look at the products what Ammann is giving to the industry and if you talk about coming into the infrastructure industry, especially in road sector, they think about Ammann. The question is why Ammann? Ammann has a product in the basket where it can go from Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana to city roads to state highway, to national highway, to the super expressways, ports, connectivity, airports – all the mining haul roads. You have all the products whether it can be a tad coating with bitumen sprayer, you will have from Ammann. You have curb casting, you have from Ammann. You have a paver to be developed or BC to be laid, you have got Ammann. You want a mix for that, you have got Ammann. You have flexible pavements, you have Ammann. You have concrete road, you have concrete plant with us. We started this off in India. Now the differentiation is how you give support onto there. We have been garnered and have 18 offices pan-India. We call it 3S-based. We call it sales, service and spare parts availability. We give project–based selling also. We have O&M contracts also. We have handholding of companies who wanted to run plants effectively. We are showing to them how new technologies come in. The other challenge is up-skilling of manpower. We have Ammann Academy where we train the operators over there. We have all mechanised and latest simulators there. We make them to run for simulators wherever we find some errors are coming, we do fine tuning with them. You feed up the recipe, you get the heating what is the output and if you need for the mix or whatever is your requirement in addition, whether you want to give liquid additive to this or SMA addition to this, you have a wrap addition to this. All this you can have all from one window. You can have one window like an industrial PC and you can put it on auto mode. You don’t have to worry about anything. It will automatically process everything. That is the beauty of this thing. It is error free.

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