Today, organizations have realized the importance and necessity of adoption of industrial digitalization – embracing Industry 4.0.

– Mandar Deo

Vice President, Power Systems, Cummins India

Despite challenges, India is set on a growth trajectory. How do you see the opportunities for players like you, with a varied range of offerings in engines and genset, driving this growth? What are the demand drivers?

2020 & 2021 have been testing times for all nations across the globe. India is gearing up towards a strong recovery to pre-pandemic levels of 2019, corroborated with accelerated vaccine drives and declining coronavirus cases, improved consumer and business confidence, and upcoming festive season driving demand upwards for most segments. Alongside, for a sustained growth trajectory, focus on continuing to address the high commodity prices & shortages of raw materials to support consumption and private investments in India. Emphasis on realization of National Infrastructure pipeline expenditure is expected to expedite the recovery of aggregate demand in the economy.

Cummins in India caters to multiple segments with various offerings – Automotive (commercial vehicles), Industrial (engine & power generation solutions for railways, marine, mining, oil & gas and pumps applications), Power Generation (gensets from 7.5kVA-3750kVA across all business segments), Distribution Sales and Service (aftermarket channel). With the reach of the business extended to the vast number of segments, the economic growth of the country is usually in tandem with the organization’s performance. With the recovery of the business segments strengthening in 2021, 2022 is anticipated to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels of 2019.

For the Power Generation segment, resumption is spear headed by key segments – Infrastructure, Datacentre, Healthcare, Rental and Manufacturing. Pandemic induced limitations led to increase in work from home and demand for digital streaming platforms, which has led to an increase in the demand for Datacentre. Cummins India’s Powergen business has been able to garner significant orders from customers – domestic and global – harnessing the high horsepower manufacturing capabilities in execution. Healthcare has also witnessed a spike, with increasing set up of Covid care centres and hospitals, driving the demand for gensets in general.

Being an international player, how far have you managed to localize in terms of sourcing material, machines, manpower, technology, know-how. What according to you are the challenges?

Cummins India Ltd. will be completing 60 years in 2022, and continues to contribute to the global operations of Cummins Inc. To demonstrate the extent broadly – for every 100 labour hours utilized to create power systems products globally, 50 hours are from India. This is contributed to through manufacturing, exports as well as procurement of parts, for Cummins businesses across the globe.

Over the years, the organization has invested in developing manufacturing, aftermarket, and technical facilities & capabilities, to cater to the engine and equipment demand of market. Some of the key facilities set up in India include:

Cummins India’s Megasite at Phaltan (a town 110km from Pune, in Satara district) comprises of 9 world class manufacturing facilities, spread across 225 acres, housing over 4000+ employees.

Cummins Technical Center India – one of Cummins’ largest research and development centre, to develop high-end technology solutions for all Cummins entities across the globe. The facility spans over 7,25,000 sq. ft space employing 2000+ engineers

For Cummins India – Atmanirbhar Bharat not only promises to be a key enabler to our business success but also opens several opportunities for us to  sustain our market presence in the future. This also enables a cost optimization focus for our business, enabling the right product at optimized price for the customers – in India, as well as globally. Recently, Cummins India Powergen business has launched the largest genset manufactured in India powered by electronic 60L engine providing power range of 2500kVADCC to 2750kVA Standby, especially catering to the Datacentre segment.

India is one of the key emerging markets and like all other markets, has its own unique set of challenges. More recently, the industries are facing semiconductor chip shortages and impact of rising commodity prices, which has affected the supply chain for delivering the right products, but recovery is expected in the subsequent quarters. Additionally, with stringent emission norms for automotive implemented and for power generation at the horizon, Cummins India is looking at these as an opportunity to provide better solutions that meet the diverse needs of the customers.

How has digitalisation and robotics disrupted the manufacturing processes, enterprise value chain and supply chain? What kind of smart technologies are being used today in the entire process? Tell us about the smart features of your manufacturing processes and how are they enabling in improving productivity, efficiency and also lowering costs?

In 2020, confronted with one of the largest health and economic crisis, industries underwent significant pressures to maintain operations amidst raw material shortages, supply restrictions, deferral of demand and protecting manpower. In these trying times, organizations have realized the importance and necessity of the adoption of industrial digitalization – embracing Industry 4.0. Cummins India Ltd. has been adopting significant improvement to the manufacturing facilities over the last few years, incorporating automation, thus improving the plant capacities, and creating a safe environment for working for the employees.

Another key inclusion to the offerings for equipment – automotive, industrial or power generation is the emergence of remote monitoring devices (telematics) have allowed customers to assess health of their equipment – vehicle or generator – from the comfort of their homes, receiving inputs on the critical parameters determining the functionality of their assets. Alongside, the monitoring enables data collection allowing organizations to pre-determine a fault based on data evaluation and analytics – thus allowing customers to have a hassle-free experience with minimal failure events. The entire set up includes a device, which is powered by telecommunication, transmitting the data of the asset to a protected cloud!

How do you see the production-linked scheme (PLI) announced by the government and the focus on promoting MSMEs benefiting the manufacturing sector?

The MSMEs were one of the worst impacted segments by the pandemic induced lockdowns in 2020 – the impact on demand, supply constraints, and raw material & manpower unavailability, culminated to closure of many small and medium enterprises.

The production linked scheme launched by the Government aims to increase domestic manufacturing by industries, thus reducing import bills and improving the cost of the overall products manufactured in India. The incentive scheme is intended to increase business opportunities for the MSMEs and enhance their manufacturing capabilities. MSMEs are crucial contributors to the value chain of manufacturing for most sectors, the PLI is expected to drive the capital push to mobilize the MSME ecosystem – thus adding impetus to the Atmanirbhar Bharat milestones achievement. Moreover, translating into large employment opportunity in the manufacturing sector.

What are your plans in terms of investments to increase capacities, adopting newer technologies, acquisitions, etc? How do you see the growth of the company by 2025?

Globally, Cummins Inc has invested in fuel cells and renewable energy spaces, pursuing lower emissions, and harnessing the greener technology. Cummins endeavours to deliver the near-term future of power as well as the medium to long-term next generation of power.

For the India market, alternative sources of energy to diesel power, are gaining traction in the automotive, industrial and back-up power market, addressing the niche market demand. But, the diesel genset market remains the key product in the back-up power segment in the foreseeable future, owing to the ease of availability, maintenance, and familiarity with the products and reducing run hours. With continuous improvements being made in the products –enhancing fuel efficiency, footprint reduction, powered by remote monitoring devices and cleaner exhaust – the diesel gensets remain one of the largely opted products for back-up power for key sectors. The diesel genset segment is gearing up for the next emission norms – CPCBIV+ – driving environmentally conscious products. These norms are more stringent than the global Tier 4F norms for certain nodes, reducing the CO, NOx, and PM nearly 90% from the previous emission guidelines. For the new norms, like various peers in the industry, Cummins India Ltd is investing in the development of robust, competitive, and compliant products. 

Cummins India continues to focus on strengthening the core products and adjacencies & expanding to new business frontiers – harnessing technology acumen, upcoming digitalization, and right investments – ensuring delivery of optimum value and quality products for the benefits of the customers.

Hits: 70