Tire Innovators

With a strong presence in over 130 countries, BKT has come a long way with its highest quality products. BKT is the one of the most preferred supplier to international OEMs in industrial, construction and agricultural tire segments, and has grown since its inception in 1988 into a diversified industrial conglomerate exporting its expansive range of off-highway solutions to the world. Quality conscious users who adhere to stringent conformity standards in countries like Europe and America prefer BKT as their supplier, thus underlining the fact that every BKT product is superior in creation and delivers expected performance."Each product passes over 450 stages of tests. The result of this rigorous practice being that BKT products are known for their reliability and have the lowest claim ratio in the industry," says Rajiv Poddar, Executive Director, BKT. BKT has three functioning state-of-the-art manufacturing plants across India and a fourth plant at Bhuj, Gujarat, is expected to start production by the end of 2013. Currently, BKT provides over 2,100 different Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) for various kinds of applications. One-stop-shop BKT ventured into all steel radials since 2008, it was one of the first to produce it in India. With years of extensive R&D, today an all steel radial plant at Chopanki, Rajasthan, is now functioning on full throttle producing top-of-the-line radial tires for OTR vehicles ranging from rigid dump trucks to snow manoeuvring vehicles. BKT has established itself as a one-stop-shop for all OTR solutions, be it for mining, industrial or OE applications. It has also initiated production of port tires. It is also a maker of the world's most preferred tires for agricultural use. BKT's range of tractor tires is specially designed to carry higher loads on and off roads with minimal soil compaction in field. Innovations ahead BKT's R&D team is touted to be one of the best in the country amongst other companies in the business and has many advancements and original creations to its credit, developed in response to the needs of their elite customers all around the world."We invest heavily every year into R&D, to upgrade our plant facilities and develop new products," informs Arvind Poddar, Chairman and Managing Director, BKT."Our competition is with global tire giants, so we always have to have an edge over technology if we have to compete with them." Moreover, to ensure maximum assessment before its products are rolled out to the markets, BKT is also associated with various testing facilities across Europe. New solutions BKT develops about 150-160 new SKUs every year in response to these ever-changing requirements of their consumers. They have exclusive facilities to develop new compounds and technology which keeps adding new products to its already gigantic range of solutions every year. The company has its own mould plant which enables them to have the fastest turnaround time, ie, from a new concept to product availability in the market. Identifying huge potential in India's mineral deposits which opens doors to possibilities of immense infrastructural growth, BKT has now ventured into full-fledged production of mining and industrial solutions providing a huge range of tire variant for various applications. Green energy Energy is one of the prime concerns for BKT. The company has set up windmills in Rajasthan to fulfil 40 per cent of their energy needs in the northern manufacturing units. Also BKT is keen on reducing its footprints even at the manufacturing level. Adding to that, Arvind Poddar says,"We keep our plants pollution free. For mixing of carbon black (powder), we have highly sophisticated auto carbon charging unit, which eliminates manual loading." The WOW campaign BKT has recently launched its new campaign aptly titled 'WOW' to promote its super-efficient industrial, mining, and OTR tires under the sub-brand Earthmax. These tires for earthmoving solutions were promoted heavily during the international trade fair bauma, Munich, using this campaign. The campaign is created in line with the performance and efficiency of the Earthmax products which are bound to evoke a sense of wonderment in its users. (Communication by the management of the company)