Putzmeister Concrete Machines is celebrating its 10th anniversary in India - and how! 'We are showing our customers that we are closer than ever to their business by developing the machines they need, and not just by selling machines but supporting them on ways to do their business, applications, service and support,' says <span style="font-weight: bold;">Wilfried Theissen, Managing Director, Putzmeister Concrete Machines.</span> He shares more...<br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">What's new:</span> Traditionally, Putzmeister focused on concrete pumps but at the end of 2015 -pushed by our customer requests - we introduced the PM batching plants.<br /> In 2016, we extended our product portfolio by PM mortar machines to help our customers improve the speed and quality of plastering, followed in 2017 by PM tunnelling equipment for mining and infrastructure and industrial pumps, to help cleaning India's mighty rivers, back filling mines and evacuation coal power stations solid waste.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Smartly equipped:</span> All our products are also suitable to the smart urbanisation and infrastructure development, particularly boom pumps, which are ideal for houses up to five to six storeys and are flexible and easy to use. Also mortar equipment is great for large housing projects to speed up finishing and bring in quality. We also have concrete batching plants that stand apart with respect to design and built features.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Technological innovations:</span> We have engineered our machines more environment-friendly by improving the engines, thereby reducing emissions as well as consumption. In addition, we have developed new cooling systems for our hydraulic circuits and reduced the hydraulic oil dramatically - from about 350 litres, which the competition is using, to about 70 litres. Furthermore, we have been doing a lot on telematics so that our customers are able to get access to data to improve fleet management.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Operator efficiency:</span> We provide specific services with every machine, which includes commissioning and training. Also, we can provide Putzmeister trained operators to customers who are new in the segment and do not have trained operators available.PM train's about 1,500 to 2,000 operators for its customers and above that, we train 500 additional operators. We are members of the Infrastructure Equipment Skill Council, which is the Government of India Initiative for developing skill all over India. Under this initiative, we have trained over 100 operators and will continue to do so for next year as well.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Big opportunity:</span> The year 2017 has been excellent for us, probably the best year ever since we have been in India. We grew 30 per cent from 2016 to 2017; the market growth rate is about 10 per cent.<br /> <br /> At present, the big opportunity is in infrastructure, mainly roads, considering that 50 per cent of the roads are concrete roads and that we are in the concrete manufacturing equipment segment. The boost will come even more for our type of equipment in the development of affordable housing as well as the smart city projects and the government's plan to develop 800 km of metro lines over the next five years.<br />