“Our asphalt plants are fitted with sensors to capture data at every critical junctions”
How has the ongoing pandemic impacted the road construction segment? Covid19 has an adverse effect not only on roads construction industry but all the other industries worldwide. In India, the road construction industry has started gaining momentum in the last
How has the ongoing pandemic impacted the road construction segment?
Covid19 has an adverse effect not only on roads construction industry but all the other industries worldwide. In India, the road construction industry has started gaining momentum in the last couple of years but due to the pandemic it has slowed down its pace. Govt has taken initiatives already to increase the speed of construction and make up for the loss occurred due to the standstill.
Our factories were shut and it was a complete standstill in the month of April, once the lockdown was eased we could resume a few of them but till date all of them are not completely up and running.
Yes it has affected the industry as a lot of migrant workers have left the sites and factories and returned to their natives for their safety and to be with their families. We have a rough estimate of our people returning which is at least 60 days from when they left.
In our business typically all the three pillars have been affected namely – machine, man and material. But at the same time our customers have been extremely supportive in these difficult times.
Tell us about the different technological developments in the road repairing equipment?
We have a full range of road maintenance and repairing products available with us under the name of Ardent Maintenance technologies Pvt.Ltd. headed by my son Chintan. We see immense potential in the maintenance business as “maintain is more challenging compared to building”
These equipment include
Truck mounted Jetpatcher – pothole filling machine which we manufacture in India with Crack Sealing machine from Strassmayr
Crack Milling machine from Strassmayr
Road widening machine for shoulder maintenance and widening of existing roads from Strassmayr
Chip sealing and road repair truck from Strassmayr
How do you see the road equipment sector grow in the next few years?
India is a country of immense potential because if we have to build a 5 trillion economy then building roads and ports is the only way. In today’s age and day of technology a lot of technologically advanced road construction equipment are available in the market and technology is the way forward. The road construction equipment industry is certain to grow at a fast pace is what I envisage.
Are the road machine equipment equipped with advanced technologies to speed up road paving projects?
Yes, all our equipment including the maintenance range of equipment are equipped with sensors to record data which we analyse to sense breakdown or preventive maintenance. This not only helps us to keep the records but also save the customer from facing a downtime of the machine.
We have portals that we install in our customers offices that give them records from all data collection points and keep them updated about the fuel consumption and health of the machines. In addition, the portal also keeps the customer updated with the amount of work done hourly, daily and this data also gives them a complete picture of the work done by the machine since commissioning. This saves the customer huge costs and maintains optimum uptime.
What are the new trends witnessed in road building?
You will see technological advancements as upcoming trends in the industry as sensors have changed the game for the whole industry. Machines that are fast have the least human intervention. This is the future for this country as we are wanting to grow and build roads quickly which is impossible without such equipment.
Our Surface mining is the huge machine that is run by only a single individual, rest all the work is done by GPS and sensors. Sitting at the comfort of my office, I am updated about the functioning of the machine. I can also keep a check on the fuel consumption and also start and stop the engine of the machine sitting miles away from the actual site.
Tell us about the different challenges faced in the road construction segment/projects and steps the organization takes to overcome them.
The two major challenges we face are:
- Mindset of customers to use old methods for road construction
- Less focus and spending on preventive maintenance of roads
To cater to this, we have successfully given economical solutions to our customer everytime which is now changing their mindsets towards construction and maintenance of roads.
Tell us about the different types of control systems used in asphalt plants.
Our asphalt plants are fitted with sensors to capture data at every critical junctions. All that data is communicated via these sensors to our operators sitting in the control cabin. We train operators for the customers to operate our plants efficiently. This is a training for 2 weeks where we teach them how to react to the messages given out to them by the sensors.
Our control panel, we call it “the brain” of our asphalt plant has been designed in a certain way to react to the sensors by itself if it is minor or if something major is going wrong then they alarm notifying the operator starts beeping.
Our fuel levels are monitored, our raw materials are monitored also in our software we can feed upto 700 recipes for the mix designs. Finally, the mix that comes out from our asphalt and concrete plants is precise and of the best quality.
What role does sensor technologies play in effective functioning of asphalt plants?
It indeed plays a vital role in the sense that it makes the plant talk to the operator provided the operator should be able to understand its language for which we train them in our training room that is built in our factory.
Do you offer customised control systems to cater to varied requirements of asphalt plants?
Yes, we do. We can add several attachment to the plants like coal burning system, RAP, various dosing systems for SMA (stone mastic asphalt) / lime/ polymers and configure them through our control system/software.
Tell us about the features incorporated in the control system to avoid sudden and unexpected component failure.
The sensors do all the job. Any small failure becomes a big damage if not taken care at the right time, like how a crack becomes a pothole if not treated when it is a crack. We have sensors that tell us that the motor needs a refill of grease, they sense temperatures and beep if anything is abnormal. We have fuel indicators that tell us if more fuel is consumed by the burner and when it sees something abnormal, it either means the burner needs attention or the aggregates have a high moisture content. I can give numerous examples like these. All the big damages that may happen give a warning through the sensors and if treated and acted on time we can save huge downtimes and inturn cost for spare parts.
Do you find the automated control systems useful to execute various tasks? What are the advantages?
Yes.They are extremely useful in having a neat and a clean job done. Major advantages include savings in spare parts costs, material accountability, cap on fuel, temperature monitoring all this translates to saving cost for our customers.
Overall market scenario of the road maintaining equipment, business perspective, future outlook.
As I mentioned earlier, we see a lot of potential in this business, as and when new roads will be built they will need maintenance and we believe in delivering economical solution to our customers. As you must also have seen that a lot of FDA is happening in road assets and these MNCs have a positive outlook towards maintenance. There will be a high demand of maintenance products in the near future and it has already begun.We have managed to give our solutions to various private as well as govt institutions. This business will see highs in the future and so we want ourselves invested in this one.
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