Enters International Hardox Wear Parts Group
The Chennai-based Orient Impex which turns out speciality niche products for infrastructure and process industries inked a pact on February 29 last with the Stockholm-based SSAB to become a part of the prestigious International Hardox Wear Parts Group. This will enable the Indian company to take advantage of the huge business opportunity that presents itself in the form of coal mining and infrastructure development, apart from others in East and North India.
Mr. Claes löwgren, Senior Technical Advisor, SSAB EMEA AB, represented SSAB and signed the agreement which facilitates Orient Impex to get the latest in terms of information, products, technology and advice to further explore the market in India.
Said Mr. Claes löwgren on the occasion: “The appointment of Orient Impex as a Hardox Wearparts partner is of high significance for SSAB because we have been working closely with them for over 25 years. Our common understanding of how Hardox products work and the experience they have acquired all these years will help better support our customers in the Indian market. We have our clear focus on the size of the Indian market; our presence has not been big enough in India and therefore I see interest towards the market not only from Hardox Wearparts but also from the whole of SSAB.”
Mr. P.E. Ramakrishnan, Managing Partner, Orient Impex, said: “This new partnership is significant from a growth perspective for any economy since it is a move away from buying plates to buying parts. When a company buys parts, it does not need to handle scrap which makes it more qualified to handle certain other types of jobs. The value proposition Orient Impex offers customers is that even if they pay a higher initial price to buy our products, the total cost over the lifetime of the product will be much cheaper. Why it is important for us to stay with Hardox is while we ourselves focus on delivering wear solutions to customers, we need a good partner, which is why we have chosen SSAB as they are ahead of the curve in terms of development of newer products in this field. We have seen them bring in applications which depend on highly advanced steels and are looking at newer solutions which will need steels which no other company can offer at present.”
Mr. Arivalagan Gnanaprakasam, Area Technical Manager – South East Asia, India & Japan, SSAB APAC (Asia & Pacific), commented: “We are very happy to join hands with Orient Impex. They are a very good company and our long-term relationship with Ram (Mr. Ramakrishnan) has been good for SSAB. Orient Impex is an engineering company focused on providing wear parts solutions to customers across the country, and we look forward to many interesting engineering applications and solutions from Ram and his team through their steel expertise.”
Orient Impex focuses on delivering the best-in-class steel-based solutions for its customers and uses Hardox special steel made by SSAB. Hardox is a heat treated material with high hardness and combined with very good toughness – a difficult combination to achieve. The material is homogenous, rolled and water quenched steel plate, in thickness ranging from 3 mm upto 165 mm and hardness values starting from 400 BHN upwards. Orient Impex has developed a set of processes and tools to machine, drill, roll into cones or cylinders, weld Hardox into different shapes.
“Since our products find application in speciality areas like cement, mining and mineral processing, road construction machinery, concrete making and transportation, coal and ash handling, excavators, wear liners and feeders, etc., we will move into areas of North and East India where huge coal mines and big infra projects are underway. Our products and expertise will save a lot of time and cost because of our speed of deliverance and understanding of the customers’ exact requirement. Orient Impex is looking to use the entire range of products like tippers, buckets, crushers, dozers, shovels, chutes, feeders, screws, pavers, pulverisers, dredgers, mixers, molds, mills, cyclones, shears, balers, shredders, drums, liners, harvesters and more in its endeavor to gain acceptance in the business of coal mines, infrastructure development, etc.”
Orient Impex has also plans to replicate its facilities of Chennai in the mining centres of Eastern India and engineering centres of Northern India and thereby double its current turnover to Rs. 60 crores in the next two years.