For more than 100 years, Timken has focused on value creation for diverse industries and market segments globally, delivering a variety of friction management and power transmission solutions for applications ranging from aircraft and automobiles to mining equipment and medical instruments. The company has had a presence in India since 1986 when it entered into an MOU with the Tata Steel. Mr Ajay K Das, Managing Director, Timken India Limited, spoke to Industrial Products Finder about the company and its products and operations in India. Excerpts:

Timken has a rich history of over 100 years. Tell us something about the origins of the company. Henry Timken, who patented a tapered roller bearing design that made life easier for freight wagon operators and their mules, founded the company in 1899. Recognising that heavy freight wagons had a hard time making sharp turns, he applied a tapered roller bearing design that could handle both radial (weight) and thrust (cornering force) loads. The application ran more smoothly, reducing repair and replacement costs. In some cases, the bearings improved wagon performance so much that fewer mules were required to pull them. Also, better cornering meant less chance of losing a load of goods. Always focused on customer benefit, Henry quickly realised that the tapered roller bearing could improve product performance in many other applications as well. He and his sons, H H and William Timken, quickly founded The Timken Roller Bearing and Axle Company and began building the business into what it is today.

How old is the India connection?

Timken India Limited, a subsidiary of The Timken Company, started its operations in 1989, with a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Jamshedpur. To cater to the growing market Timken has subsequently setup a manufacturing facility in Chennai in 2008. The Timken Technology Centre, Bangalore is one of the four Timken innovation and development centres around the world, which provides our customers a unique opportunity to access a global pool of engineering expertise and the latest technological advancements. It is part of our vision to leverage technology and people to deliver a sustainable and competitive advantage to our customers. Bearings are a vital component in any application and reliability is always an issue.

What are the quality parameters set and followed?

Our vision says "We are dedicated to improving our customers' performance by applying our knowledge of friction management and power transmission to deliver unparalleled value and innovation all around the world." Quality is the cornerstone of our brand promise and a key to our global competitiveness. We follow the same exacting global standard for Timken products in all manufacturing facilities. The raw material, production methods, tooling, gauging and inspection systems are comprehensively managed to ensure that Timken branded products meet the highest performance standard in the industry.

The company seems to have a wide product range. What are the applications?

Timken is a global leader in friction management technologies and provides one of the most complete offerings of antifriction bearings in the industry. Timken provides friction management and power transmission solutions for many major market segments, including aerospace, metals, automotive, construction, mining, consumer, defense, energy, industrial equipment, health, heavy industry, machine tool, positioning control, power generation, sugar, paper and rail.

Why should the customers prefer Timken bearings?

Timken is one of the world's leading producers of highly engineered anti-friction bearings and related products and services and alloy steel and components. We help create, transfer and control power, putting our friction management and power transmission technologies to work across a broad industry spectrum. Over 110 years of our existence, we have created a vast reservoir of knowledge through our own research and field experiences. Using this knowledge and experience, we are able to design products that optimise the performance and cost for customers' equipments and that is why the OEMs prefer buying from Timken. Once we have our products supplied through OEM equipments, we ensure that they are well serviced in the aftermarket through our vast channel of independent distributors and services offering. Customers prefer Timken bearings because we provide them with least total cost and most reliable life cycle solutions.

How does the cost of ownership over the life cycle compare with competition?

As mentioned above, Timken provides total solution to customers right from the design stage to end usage of product. This helps them in effectively using the bearings in terms of getting best product life out of bearings/equipment at optimum parameters thereby reducing overall cost per production cycle. Timken techno-commercial solutions include: Technical Analysis & Design Support - Help in designing and suggesting suitable bearings based on the customer requirements; Commercial Support - Timken direct OEs & Aftermarket team with a big fleet of distributors in all locations of country supported by dedicated customer service team supplies bearings to customer; and Services Team to take care of service requirements of customers. Timken's dedicated efforts in providing total solution to customers differentiates us vis-?-vis our competition.

Customers who have turned to Timken have remained with us for years together.

How strong/effective is the after sales service, especially for large bearings?

Since most of the large bearings are imported at significant cost and with long lead time, they emphasise on getting maximum value for money spent, that's why after sales service is important. Refurbishment of large size bearings maximise life cycle and reduce cost of ownership. After sales service plays an important role in our offer to customers. Timken has a separate Service department with Service Engineers located all across the country who help customers pro-actively in understanding key maintenance practices which in turn increases life of bearings and their equipments. There is on-site support to take care of any friction management problems faced by customers.

Refurbishment of Large Size bearings is undertaken to reduce customer capital cost. In addition, we have the MILLTEC concept whereby customers outsource their rollshop maintenance to Timken and Timken's qualified and experienced team. Presently, we are providing this service to Tata Steel, JSW, Essar Steel, among others.

What are the company's landmark achievements?

The Timken India milestones are: MoU between Timken and Tata Steel in 1986; Tata Timken incorporated in 1987; Timken plant in Jamshedpur in 1989; launch of bearing refurbishment services in 1997; launch of Timken Engineering and research India - its global technology center in 1998, Timken acquired Tata's stake in 1999 and changed the name of the company to Timken India Ltd; MILLTEC contract of Tata Steel in 2000; capacity addition in 8" Cone Grind in 2005; capacity expansion in rail road in 2006; new product line for double extended cone (DE-Cone) commissioned in 2006; new plant at Chennai in 2007; project O.N.E implementation - Go Live in 2009; and finally, the expansion plan in Chennai in 2011.

Any breakthrough product launch that made a difference?

The Bangalore Timken Technology Centre was instrumental in developing the Shaft Guarding Technology