Local requirements

Schwing Stetter enjoys a long history in the Indian construction market. It set up its production plant in Chennai as long ago as 1998 and this has helped it secure a dominant position in the country's concrete batching plant segment.

But last month's Excon exhibition in Bangalore saw it launch a remarkable 19 new products onto the Indian market, many of which have been specifically designed with the needs of local customers in mind.

Most eye-catching was its 'Nimo' 3 m3 truck mixer, an unusually small mixer, but one which fills an important gap. "Permits are such that most mixer trucks can only enter cities between 9 pm and 7 am, but this small truck can go through cities at any time," explained Schwing Stetter India COO V.G. Sakthi Kumar, who added that the machine was aimed at small-scale house building work.

Other new additions to the portfolio included a 20 m reach placing boom, which has been designed to unfold in low headroom applications like tunnelling. The unit can also be run electrically - again a key requirement in tunnelling.

Indeed, the company has its eye on the infrastructure market with a number of other new additions to the range. These include a 10 m3 truck mixer, an ice plant to pre-cool concrete prior to large pours, and a recycling plant to re-claim aggregates from un-used ready mixed concrete.

Managing director Anand Sundaresan said, "People are cautious now because of inflation and interest rate rises, but long-term everyone is bullish. Infrastructure development will be tremendous - US$ 1 trillion of the next five years. All of it requires concrete. Even in road building, about 40% of the work will be concrete."