‘Efficiency means lower life cycle cost’

May 18, 2011 12:03 pm

“More power efficient the pump is, the less maintenance it requires.  And if evaluated over the pump’s life, it brings down the life cycle cost greatly”, opines Shashi Shankar Naik, Director – Sales, ITT Corporation India.
 
Performance of pumps and valves industry in India
It has been wisely said that pumps and valves belong to that sector of industry which is recession proof. Come rain or shine, pumps and valves are always retailed, replaced, repaired and required. This market continues to witness an impressive growth of at least 15 per cent YOY. A fair share of this happens out of unorganized sector.
 
As a result, the Indian pump industry continues to be on a roller coaster and continues to provide ample opportunities especially for brands like Lowara & Flygt pumps, which have the state-of-the-art products.
 
Prime growth drivers
India is largely an agrarian economy. Much of the agriculture depends on deep bore wells, for which a combination of submersibles, monosets, monoblocs and turbine pumps are required. Besides, the Indian GDP is growing at more than 8 per cent per annum, for the last several years, leading to an impressive industrialization and thus priming the growth in this industry.
 
Technical efficiency within the OEM sector
OEM sector is driven by
•      Need for high quality and low maintenance / replacement product
•      Costs competitive to enable them take on their competition.
 
A new method of evaluating the right product for OEM sector has evolved off late, that stresses on ‘Cost of Ownership (COO)’, not only for the systems that the OEM is manufacturing, but also for all its critical components like pumps, valves, instruments etc. COO as applied to pumps would include cost of pumps, cost of energy used to run the pump and the cost of maintenance.  More power efficient the pump is, the less maintenance it requires. And if evaluated over the pump’s life, it brings down the life cycle cost (LCC) greatly.
 
Lowara pumps qualify for these precise evaluation criteria and have been making inroads in the OEM sector.
 
Besides doing a design optimization of correct sizing the head and flow requirement will get the right pumps for right application in the OEM sectors.
 
Availability of skilled manpower
Generally, the engineering industry and in particular pump industry, suffers the exodus of all engineering talent to the presently lucrative IT sector. This certainly is a cause for worry for the pump industry in general but for brands like Lowara & Flygt, which have products with differentiating features, not seen in the Indian market for a long time.
 
Market size
Indian pump industry for the FY 2010-11 was estimated at USD 2.2 billion in revenue and 3.1 million by units. The industry has more than 500 participants, which may be classified into tier I & II categories. Tier I are players whose revenue is more than USD 25 million and who have a pan India marketing network. Tier II are players whose revenue is less than USD 25 million and have a local geographical presence. The pumps and valves market by end-use segment is broadly classified into Industrial Process, Building Services, Municipality and Agriculture.
 
About ITT
Established in 2007, ITT Corporation India Pvt Ltd maintains a significant presence in India, with businesses representing fluid technology, motion & flow control and electronic components. The company has its technology centre and manufacturing facility in Vadodara, Gujarat and operates sales offices in all major metro areas.