Page 93 - CO JAN 2020

POST EXCON 2019
INTERACTION

We are expanding more into Solutions

Business and Predictive maintenance

Ashok Leyland, the flagship of the Hinduja Group, the second-largest commercial vehicle
manufacturers in India and has consolidated its leadership position with numerous successful customers.
RAJESH. R, VP - POWER SOLUTIONS BUSINESS, ASHOK LEYLAND LTD in an exclusive interview to
CONSTRUCTION OPPORTUNITIES, speaks about the participation at EXCON 2019, the new emission
norms, market scenario and the company’s solutions on the digital front.

How has EXCON 2019 been for Ashok Leyland The year as far as the CV industry is concerned has been very
This edition of EXCON has given Ashok Leyland a lot of new challenging for Ashok Leyland. Our Power Solutions Business
opportunities. We had displayed our new range of future-ready has been addressing four different market segments – Power
emission BSIV CEV Engines. We are supplying across the complete Generation, Industrial, Agriculture and Marine. There has been a
gamut of industries- construction, mining, road building, etc. little slowdown in the Power Generation and Industrial sector due
We look at this as a great opportunity as even if there is an to the slow down and liquidity crunch. However, the demand for
economic slowdown, there are new investments coming up in the the agriculture sector has gone up. This is due to a good monsoon
infrastructure sector and it will bring up a lot more opportunities for after June. We are primarily supporting close to 95 per cent of the
us. Over 20 prototypesof our new future ready engines are already market for the Wheel Harvester market in India. We are on a growth
under validation with the OEMs in the construction equipment path and though the year has been a slow one for the company,
industry and this has been running very successfully. We are we hope to have a change in the scene shortly.
getting a lot of traction for all our products for the Construction IoT and AI have started to be implemented to ease the operation
Equipment Industry and we are very happy with the response at and obtain great results. Your comments?
Excon this year.
The vehicle industry is going through a lot of changes and new
With the emission norm transition is right around the corner, what challenges. We have been spearheading the business with our
is your take on the transition? solutions in digital space. The solutions that we have currently
The commercial vehicle industry is migrating from BS-IV to BS-VI developed for India and the global market are in-house
emission norms from April 2020 and globally India is the only country developments and we are already ahead in the digital solutions
where migration of emission norms at this level is happening in the space.
span of three years. From our company perspective, we have been Our company has already developed a new solution –iAlert, which
working across engines with innovative solutions for the CV industry. has already been implemented on our vehicles. It collects data
We have the complete range of vehicles with BS-VI norms ready about the performance of the vehicle including its fuel availability
and homologated.
and other details. The data is available on an app for use by end
In the case of emission norms for the CE industry, the norms will customers and fleet operators.
be shifting from the current BS-III to BS-IV from October 2020. This Tell us more about the digital solutions offered by Ashok Leyland
means that there is a six month lag between the shift of norms We are moving towards end to end solutions called Customer
for the automobile and CV industry. For the CE industry, it will be Solution Business (CSB). This includes Service Mandi Solutions which
a natural migration of our Engine family and we are customizing is an app-based service. This app helps you get the nearest
the engines to suit the customer requirements and with minimum mechanic who has been trained and certified by Ashok Leyland
modifications for the BS-IV CEV norms.
pan India. Moving ahead we are expanding more into the digital
How has 2019 been as a year for the industry and specifically space in terms of monitoring the performance and the predictive
for Ashok Leyland given the turmoil the sector has been facing? maintenance of the vehicles.

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