We are exporting to around 25 countries all over the globe, especially to Nepal, Bangladesh, Africa, and Middle East.

– Premraj Keshyep

Managing Director, KYB Conmat India

What is your focus in Excon this year?

Excon has always been our focus area for us to showcase our technological advance in the field. And this is a good opportunity after two and a half years, particularly when the industry is trying to recover from the pandemic. So, we spent last two two and a half years in developing new products, upgrading our existing range of products and adding new features. So, this Excon is really very important for us to showcase all those advancements.

What are the products that you have showcased at Excon?

We have showcased many new products in Excon, especially the four new model of self loading mixers, right from 2.8 cubic meter, then we have 4 cubic meter, we have 4.3 cubic meter and 4.8 cubic meter. So, we have now the biggest range of self loading mixer in India. So, we have launched all those four new models in self loading mixer and the hallmark of the self loading mixer developed by us is that unlike other products available in India, which are either imported from Europe or China and upgraded, we have developed the machine for India from India. So, we have R&D center where we develop the machine from scratch. Instead of just following the European design, we have completely designed and developed the machine from scratch. These machines are better in a position to handle the special concrete which are used in India because the kind of concrete used in Europe and China is different and our product is specially designed only for the Indian market. We are also exporting, but then if we can handle tough concrete like Indian concrete, definitely it can handle anything. It can also handle zero slump concrete and also the DLC, which is very difficult to even make from a concrete batching plant and we are able to mix DLC in our self-loading mixer. So, we are now basically exploring a new avenue for self loading mixer which was not exploited till date.

In paving machines, we have launched a new machine which is fitted with the gang vibrator and double bar inserter especially for city roads and village roads, where the conventional slip form machine cannot work and the value and cost of these machines is just a fraction of a slipform machine. So, it is again hitting the market and people are really accepting that because now at a fraction of cost of a conventional slipform machine you can get the same quality of concrete in village and city roads. In addition, we have launched a compact batching plant with the deep bucket conveyor so that the footprint of the plant is reduced by almost 40%. Our constant effort is to reduce the footprint but also maintaining the same efficiency of the plant.

Tell us about your export market.

We are exporting to around 25 countries all over the globe, especially in Nepal, Bangladesh, Africa, and Middle East. And now, we are getting good response for our product and we are exporting almost all our products like batching plant, paving machines, concrete pumps and self-loading mixer and the share of export in our total turnover is close to 15%. We are planning to increase that further. Earlier, we were exporting through our dealers. But now, we are doing it directly as we have our own agents placed in the countries.

From the end-users point of view, what can we look forward from KYB Conmat?

From the end-users point of view, we have always emphasized the ease of operation and less maintenance. So, the machine should perform for more hours rather than spending time on maintenance. So, our plants require very minimum maintenance, because the plants are designed in such a way that everything is visible and we use components which are rugged and easily available in the market. The downtime is reduced and there are no complicated or sophisticated parts that we use in our machines, because the machines are working in rough and tough environments.  So, our focus is mainly on ease of use and maintainability.

What are the technological advances like IoT and automation in your products?

We have been using IoT for a very long time and it is not a new thing for us, because our control system is equipped with IoT for almost now seven years. Even for export market like fleet management systems, inventory management systems, everything is a standard available in our products and not an add-on. We have an add-on for cloud controlling so that the data can be stored in the cloud and shared globally. So, we are very advanced in the use of IoT and artificial intelligence.

You mentioned about 15% of your turnover from Exports. What is your total turnover?

Despite the corona pandemic, I am happy to say that we have crossed Rs. 300 crores. The turnover could have been more, but due to Corona we had an impact for three years, but then somehow we could manage the sales.

What is your employee strength?

We have around 500 staffers and 200 contract workers, so 700 people in total. One thing I would like to mention specially that despite the corona pandemic and so much of difficulty, we have not retrenched a single person in the last three years. We have given them regular increment incentives because we believe that it is our duty to maintain the word. Most of the companies, in order to maintain their balance sheet, just cut down on the expenses and HR. I beleive that it is not good for industry because when the market opens, when you get the growth in the business, it is very difficult to recoup or reorganize the skill and the confidence which they have lost which is very difficult to regain. So, we have a policy of no fire in company unless a person has some bad conduct or mischief. We believe that they are working for us and it is our duty to help them manage their families too.

What is the outlook for KYB Conmat for next 5 – 10 years?

The way we have been introducing new products and growing steadily, I believe that the future is bright for us and we are now slowly expanding our area of operation and we would like to diversify and expand the business in road building in the earthmoving sector also. 

What are the challenges you face in terms of the raw materials?

Material has been a very big challenge for the last two years particularly after the corona pandemic, steel prices have gone exorbitantly high. Even the availability of raw material is very difficult. But, somehow because of our good network and good professional team, we are able to arrange the material and we are able to reengineer the products to maintain the cost so that we do not have to pass on the cost to the customer.  But somehow, we are able to manage the company’s profits despite of all these difficulties.

You might have brought the best product in the industry to execute a particular project, but do you have skilled labour to operate it properly?

As mentioned earlier, our focus is for ease of operation, and maintainability. If you can bring the technology which is not user friendly, and you don’t have a skilled manpower, the technology will be waste, it will be a waste of resources, and possibly it will have a negative impact on the quality of the construction. So it is very important to maintain a user friendly technology. And since we have an in-house R&D and control system and software division, we are able to manage the development of technology or introduction of technology in such a way that is user friendly.

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