Gujarat Apollo
Wheel GSB Plant
“We base our product quality on customers’ needs”
Despite challenges like supply chain disruptions, lockdowns, and unprecedented volatility of commodity prices, Indian aggregate industry is poised to benefit from government’s mega infra vision, says Asit Patel, Managing Director, Gujarat Apollo Industries Ltd.
How does the future of India’s aggregate industry look like? What challenges has Gujarat Apollo faced?
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) targets ₹7-trillion road infrastructure in two years, which will generate huge demand for aggregate and manufactured sand with capital goods and equipment companies benefiting from the vision tremendously. The major beneficiaries will be crushing, screening and washing systems, as turnkey solution suppliers with focus on cost, quality, delivery and after sales support. Currently, India has 5 billion MT of aggregate and sand usage in India as compared to China’s 20 billion MT consumption, roughly four times the aggregates and sand usage we have. Our challenges were mainly on account of supply chain disruptions due to Covid-19, inability to travel across India for various sales and service tasks, unavailability of vessels and containers for export orders and unprecedented volatility of commodity prices.
How many manufacturing facilities do you have in India? Are there any plans to add more plants?
Gujarat Apollo presently has one plant. We are open to tie-ups with manufacturing partners to optimise cross-country transportation costs to our customers in south and north regions.
Localisation plays a big part in bringing down costs. How has Gujarat Apollo been able to achieve localisation?
We have fully indigenised our current products that we offer from crushing and screening portfolio, and we will continue to do in the future to improve our customer value proposition. We are using the Make in India mantra and continue to believe in this for further expansion. We have few models of cone and jaw crushers of various capacities for export markets.
Being a leading equipment producer for aggregate industry, what kind of growth do you see in the next five years?
Due to various Government of India initiatives such as GatiShakti, we expect to witness unprecedented growth. It will be our endeavour to meet customers’ expectations. We have over 50 years of legacy of mechanising infrastructure building in India. It would be our endeavour to continue this tradition by diversifying in related filed such as C&D recycling construction and demolition waste management.
Tell us about your network of clients and dealers.
Most of our equipment are supplied to reputed projects in aggregate and infrastructure players across India and overseas. We have three dealers in India and will explore more partnerships, as we move forward.
Tell us about technology adoption at Gujarat Apollo. What’s your views on trends in electrification of equipment?
We continue to adopt all the latest technologies, such as SCADA, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and automation to enhance customer’s delight. As India is soon to be electricity surplus, going electric is inevitable whether you are driving a car, bus, scooter or operating an equipment. Due to the ambitious targets set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, in Glasgow, United Kingdom, from 31 October-13 November 2021, going electric is inevitable for all of us.
Tell us about your research and development initiatives. How do you measure and analyze the properties of rocks and minerals manufactured by your machines?
At Gujarat Apollo, we constantly strive and improve our product quality and performance in the field with respect to customers’ needs and requirements and are committed to it.
All quarrying and stone-processing operations are potential sources of particulate emissions. How does the company help in mitigating the emissions?
We have options to provide dust suppression system with our plants to control dust emissions at loading as well as unloading points. All machines and belt conveyors can be covered to reduce particulate emissions.
Give us some insight into your equipment’s buried machine data and using the right technology. What are some learnings from the data from the machines installed by the company?
We have recently done a workshop on using IoT/automation to monitor performance from far-off locations and predictive maintenance apart from increasing efficiency, productivity and cost control.
What initiatives have you taken for better and efficient customer engagement?
We have a robust framework for engaging with customer using social media and we continue to improve upon them. We are in the process of establishing regional spares and service outlets.
