On the occasion of Atlas Copco inaugurating its new global engineering centre at Hinjewadi in Pune, Huned Contractor spoke to Mr Stephan Kuhn, the company's Business Area President on future growth plans and product innovations

What started about a decade ago as an engineering centre with just four employees has today grown to a team of over 200 highly skilled engineers who have just shifted to a swanky global engineering centre at Hinjewadi in Pune, an area known for its information technology companies. This just goes to show that Atlas Copco, an industrial group with leadership position in compressors, expanders and air treatment systems, is all geared up to meet the increasing demand for its products from a country that is galloping at a GDP rate of nearly 8 per cent. In India, Atlas Copco started operations in 1960 and now has 22 offices across the country with its headquarters at Pune. As such, Mr Stephan Kuhn, Business Area President, Atlas Copco Compressor Technique, no doubt has much to be proud of. As he reveals in this interview post the inauguration of the centre, things are only going to get brighter.

What role will the Global Engineering Center India Airpower (GECIA) have to play in the company's operations?

In specific terms, GECIA will cater to the designing requirements on a global scale that will include product development, manuals, marketing and operational animation, and so on. For instance, if a customer places an order for a particular type of compressor in Belgium, back-end designing work will happen here. There will also be a lot of reverse engineering involved as also the designing of electrical systems, etc. It's only the testing of the products that will take place in the factories.

Will it look after research and development too?

Now that's a tricky term. We do undertake R&D but that is not of the kind that you would typically find being done in universities or in pharmaceutical laboratories. Our R&D is more to do with creating tailor-made solutions for our clients. We work on two levels. One, we have standard compressors which are like off-the-shelf products and don't really require any further development and two, there are certain compressors which have to have value additions because they have to be used for certain specific projects, as for example in offshore drilling for oil in which the water has to be treated.

What is your current manufacturing status in India?

Without divulging figures, let me just say that we are now a leader in three core business areas - air and gas compressors, construction and mining equipment, and industrial tools and assembly systems. This also includes the after-market and rental space. The company has state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities at Pune, Nashik and Hyderabad. Both the manufacturing plants in Pune and Nashik are ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified. In addition to that, the company has two captive engineering competency centres dedicated for compressors and construction and mining equipment.

What about the proposed plant at Chakan near Pune?

We have bought 24 acres of land at Chakan and the construction work for the first phase is in full swing. We expect to start manufacturing industrial air compressors and portable energy compressors from September this year.

Is this capex programme in anticipation of rising demand for compressors?

I will quote what someone said during a panel meeting in Delhi just a few days ago, which is that India in 2020 will be what China is today. In fact, while things are slowing down a bit in China, India is riding an amazing growth curve and looked at it from a global perspective, India is among the top five markets for Atlas Copco. The demand for compressors is but naturally going to increase because we are now no longer restricted to the construction or mining sectors.

Our compressors are being used in almost every process industry, including textiles, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, food and beverages, oil and gas, chemicals, etc. I don't think there is any single sector today that does not have a requirement for compressors. Therefore, with an eye on what's going to happen in the coming years, we have no choice but to keep increasing our capacities.

Atlas Copco was recently voted the 10th most sustainable company. Could you elaborate on that?

Atlas Copco has been ranked the world's 10th most sustainable company in the annual Global 100 list, presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January this year. This makes it the highest ranked industrial company. The Global 100 list is presented annually and is based on a selection of 4,000 developed and emerging market companies, which are measured against key performance indicators such as revenues in relation to consumption of energy and water. What it implies is that our performance is not just related to our financials but also to how we behave as a corporate citizen of the world.

We have set about 20 targets to make our plants environmental-friendly which includes conservation of energy, life cycle approach to processes and products, CO2 footprints, water consumption, etc. Besides, another factor that is always high on the priority list of Atlas Copco is safety. We maintain the highest standards when it comes to the safety of our plants and people, which is what makes us a highly preferred employer.

What is the driving force for the company to maintain its leadership position?

The first thing is quality. We are leaders when it comes to designing compressors that will give you the purest of air quality. Besides, our range of products to suit any kind of industrial operation is very impressive. We have the kind of technical manpower that can devise solutions for all kinds of requirements. That, in a sense, means innovation. Atlas Copco has been included on a new list of the world's 100 most innovative companies, as announced last month. The Top 100 Global Innovators list is based on an examination of the intellectual property of all companies or organisations that have had 100 patents or more approved in the past three years.

The most innovative companies were singled out based on the success of their patent applications, the global scope of the patents and most importantly, the influence these patents has had on the inventions of other companies. Innovation is at the heart of what all of us at Atlas Copco do, because we know that there is always a better way. We will continue working hard to keep this focus and reach our future goals to increase productivity for our customers, energy efficiency and growth.

So what's next?

May be we will grow so fast that this centre we have shifted our designing team to, could in a short span of time become too small to accommodate more talent and we would have to look for larger premises. That is what defines continuous growth.