‘CLOSE TO OUR CUSTOMERS’ has always been our motto.

The WIRTGEN GROUP’s products are specialists in their field and have decades of application experience. The company offers a broad range of highly advanced and innovative equipment to suit customer’s requirements for all areas of road construction and road rehabilitation. In an exclusive interview to CONSTRUCTION OPPORTUNITIES, RAMESH PALAGIRI, MD & CEO, WIRTGEN INDIA, speaks about the products offered by the company, key features and a lot more.

Give us an overview of the Compaction & Paving equipment industry in India, latest trends and market dynamics

There is a shift from concrete roads to bituminous roads , so the demand for Asphalt pavers has increased. The  market  for  compactors for  the past 8-10 years  has been  around  2500 units per  year . However  with  the infrastructure development  projects  planned  by the  government in the  roads and highway sector, this  demand  has considerably picked up and is currently around 4000 units per year.

Tell us about the range of Compaction & Paving equipment offered by you, in terms of types, capacities and applications. Have you launched any new products or launching new products in the near future.

The Wirtgen Group Hamm compactors come with more than 125 years of experience in the development and manufacture of roller and compactors for soil and asphalt compaction. HAMM, the German manufacturer leading the field in compaction technology, is a member of the internationally successful WIRTGEN GROUP and a global leader in the market of road rollers with more than 180 years of compaction expertise. In India we offer the Hamm HC 119i soil compactor, HD 99i Asphalt compactors , which are produced at our Pune plant.

Hamm soil Compactors  are  built with patented design of  three point  articulation joint . This  connects the front  and  rear  end  of  the  compactor  and  enables  excellent  directional stability and  provides  driver  safety  on difficult  terrains and  also  adds to drivers  comfort .

The right machine for every paving application, VÖGELE Asphalt pavers are offered from the range of 0.5 mtr upto 16 mtrs. Mini Class, Compact Class, Universal Class,Highway Class and Special class- the names of the pavers says it all. The NEW Dash-5 generation of Pavers  offer customers- an up to date, cost efficient paver technology that simultaneously makes a measurable contribution to  environmental protection also. Vögele has made user requirements a key focus of development, resulting in further optimisation of the ErgoPlus operating concept which, with its touchscreen and smartphone shelf, delivers even greater convenience for digital road construction.

Tell us about some major projects where your products have been used and the benefits accrued to your customer.

The Wirtgen Group offers a 360 degree solution in road construction as well as road rehabilitation. We offer our customers not only machines, but also a direct service and application support. Our trained operators are fully equipped to operate these machines for their optimum use. In India, the Wirtgen Group machines have significatnly contributed to create many world records for our customers like Patel Infrastrucure and Rajpath Infracon. Prestigious highways and expressways like the Delhi Mumbai Expressway, the Samruddhi Expressway, the Pune Mumbai Expressway, the Yamuna Expressway, Runways across all major airports in India are constructed with the Wirtgen Group machines.

Intelligent machines, telematics and IoT are becoming a trend with equipment, your comments. Cutting edge technology featured in your machines. What distinguishes your equipment from competitors.

With its innovative, high-performance and cost-efficient products and technologies for cold milling, soil stabilization, hot and cold recycling, concrete paving and surface mining, WIRTGEN leads the world market in road and mineral technologies. All the machines offered by Wirtgen are equipped with Computer-assisted automated features which not only optimize operating processes and machine productivity but also improve operator performance. Intelligent information and diagnostic systems additionally support and relieve the operator, resulting in a faster and more efficient way of working. Wirtgen’s customer-oriented development expertise is a guarantee of innovations tailored to the needs of the market. The new solutions for cold milling developed at the brand headquarters in Windhagen are founded on practical know-how and core competences in levelling, control and cutting technology.

WITOS Fleet View: This digital telematics solution records operating, position and maintenance data from VÖGELE, WIRTGEN and HAMM machines, increasing fleet availability as a result. The telematics solution enables the WIRTGEN GROUP to analyse service-related parameters, such as total operating hours, and to send notifications of upcoming servicing intervals to customers. Customers and their employees also have access to this data in a clearly structured web application. Via a special online connection, they can take advantage of various analysis functions.

WITOS Paving Plus: It is GPS based digital platform which links all parties involved in the project in a network. It collects real time data from various sensor installed on the plant and machinery. Before construction work begins, for instance, the site manager prepares the project using the Control Module.

The mixing plant supervisor uses the Materials Module. The trucks automatically transmit their precise position including estimated arrival time to the system via the Transport Module. The paving supervisor and/or the paver operator operate the JobSite Module locally on the job site. Once the project is complete, the site manager has all the data available for evaluation in the Analysis and Documentation Module.

With WITOS HCQ, HAMM has taken another leap forward, towards the digital construction site. Here, all process data that has been collected is transferred to the WITOS portal via the mobile network. Individual people who have been granted corresponding access rights, such as construction site managers, supervisory authorities or consultants, can then monitor the construction site in real time from any location using the WITOS portal, provided by the Wirtgen Group.

Factors such as safety, operator comfort, ease of operations are crucial. What are the steps undertaken by you for providing the same.

Keeping in mind, the varying and challenging work conditions across India, we emphasis more on the ergonomics, safety and comfort of the operators.

The cab design for the operators also plays very important role as the operator can concentrate more on the work rather than struggling for his basic safety and comfort during the long work hours.

To give an example, our ErgoPlus display technology in Vogele pavers is extremely user friendly on which the operator can work intuitively and does not need the knowledge of any specific languages. The operator seat and the console can be adjusted easily to achieve maximum visibility. 

Aftermarket services as a strategic differentiator.

“CLOSE TO OUR CUSTOMERS“ has always been our policy. We offer direct service support to our customers and this together with our Application support is our main differentiator.

Are you tied up with any equipment financing companies to help potential buyers with equipment purchases

We are tied up with almost all of the leading equipment finance companies to help our customers and potential buyers.