“We have always been a service focused player in the Indian MHE segment.”

We focus on upskilling through training and deskilling through digitisation.

Anil Lingayat
Executive Vice President & Business Head, Godrej Material Handling,
Godrej & Boyce .

Godrej & Boyce offers a wide spectrum of solutions across equipment types, capacities and technologies. Its range includes electric and diesel counterbalance forklifts up to 25T capacity, warehouse trucks and special trucks for specific applications. “We have been continuously working towards meeting ever exceeding expectations of our customers and ensuring maximising uptime guarantee,” states Anil Lingayat, Executive Vice President & Business Head, Godrej Material Handling, Godrej & Boyce.  Lingayat speaks about the changing trends in the forklift segment.

Could you throw some light on your after-sales service portfolio?

We have qualified, trained, experienced field force of over 100 engineers and technicians located at the 16 company branches to provide prompt and competent technical assistance and intervention.  We are supported by a wide network of over 45 dealers for spare parts and technical intervention and are managed by a specialized technical cell at Mumbai to train, guide and support this large field force. The spares stocks maintained at Mumbai, various branches and with dealers ensure more than 92% of parts availability.Across our supply chain we maintain over 5000 SKUs

We also offer OMCs for Godrej equipment as well as those of our partners Crown, Komatsu, Tennant and Hubtex. Under our overhaul service we offer professional assessment of equipment by our qualified, experienced staff to ensure best results.

We also provide equipment on rentals to help make companies asset light.

How innovative your strategies are in the service front?

We have always been a service focused player in the Indian material handling industry and created service as a differentiator. We focus on upskilling through training and deskilling through digitisation and have strategized all our energies towards initiatives under these broad themes. Deploying initiatives, monitoring, refining and creating OFI’s to roll out newer initiatives has been the way of life for Godrej Material Handling Service, continuously working towards meeting ever exceeding expectations of our customers and ensuring maximising uptime guarantee.

What has been the impact of the data driven technologies while you designing aftermarket support systems based on the matrix of customer satisfaction?

We at GMH have internalized a process of using data and analytics as a powerful tool to build systems, processes and products to create a ecosystem for predictable sustenance.

Our entire journey of being a “parts and labour support” function for our products to today offering a complete basket of service offering such as a “range of maintenance contracts” to suit the customer requirements to offering “operations and maintenance contracts” to a “complete rental solutions” has been based on identifying latent needs, designing service solutions, piloting and deploying.

One such example is the industry first launch of Godrej lubricating oils range which has now grown from 3 SKU’s to 9 SKU’s covering our entire range of products.

There is a shortage of skill manpower to operate forklift trucks. What are the training programmes Godrej Material Handling conducts for its operators?

It is essential to impart proper operator training to use equipment to its full potential. We have a dedicated training manager with experience more than 20 years in trainingand imparts operation, safety and maintenance training during commissioning of the equipment.Godrej Material Handling has set-up their own in-house training center and training modules wherein operators are trained.

Being a market leader, we consider it as a responsibility to spread the importance of right operator skills especially in the lift truck driving domain by spreading the message:

• Safety of man, machine and materials
• Higher productivity, better efficiency

We have trained the first batch of lady forklift operators in 2016 , the first of its kind in India with the help of RPG group.

Which are the sectors that will act as a catalyst for the growth of forklift truck in India for the next three years?

The increase in consumption, change in lifestyle and people unwillingness to do menial jobs will lead to growth of the material handling industry. The above factors with government’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, which is expected to spur local manufacturing thereby leading to setting-up of new facilities which will require forklifts to support operations.

In addition, the immense growth being witnessed in the warehousing sector especially to support the booming ecommerce and modern retail segment will be another key driver for growth in forklifts industry.

What are the challenge material handling equipment players face in India?

The major issues and challenges faced by material handling equipment is related to the low level of demand and volume as compared to major foreign markets outside India such as  China, USA, Japan and Europe. Indian manufactures face a cost disadvantage because of economies of scale as compared to foreign manufactures from other countries.

In addition, the availability of components from ancillaries and other suppliers is at a much lower level in our country as compared to the others. Post implementation of GST, the companies who are not manufacturing material handling equipment in India and are supplying from their foreign factories have impacted local manufacturing of material handling equipment in India. The government authorities should look into it and support manufacturers who are manufacturing in India.

These make the equipment manufactured in India cost uncompetitive with machines imported from low cost countries. Despite all these reasons, government’s emphasis on ‘Make in India’ campaign has brought a boost to the manufacturing sector thus increasing the demand of MHE considerably.

Hits: 845