Location: Khed City, Pune, India
Challenge: Fulfill strict safety and reliability standards in manufacturing vital components for the Power Grid Corporation of India.
Solution: Deliver high-quality cranes built on strong local expertise and decades of experience in designing and servicing thousands of cranes for various industries.
Hyosung’s advanced manufacturing plant in the Khed City Economic Zone near Pune, India, supplies critical components for use in India’s electrical power distribution grid. The facility produces high-voltage, gas-insulated switch gear, transformers, circuit breakers and other related components using the latest lean manufacturing technology.
The plant contributes to the Make in India program – one of a wide set of nation-building initiatives launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 that seeks to spur India’s economy by boosting the manufacturing sector. The facility counts among the best of those operated by the global Hyosung Corporation, and was purpose-built to contribute significantly to enhancing the efficiency and reliability of electrical transmission in India.
A model of production efficiency
“Everything in the plant is keyed to meet the safety, precision and reliability standards of product manufacture and supply required by the Power Grid Corporation,” says the Director and Head of Operations of Hyosung’s Pune plant, S.C. Shin. The facility is designed to serve as a model of efficiency in building and delivering quality switchgear as needed by Power Grid, employing the highest standards of production to see to it that product is available when and where it is required.
“The customer needs a local supplier who can respond to their needs to maintain the grid’s integrity,” Shin says, explaining that the design philosophy for the new plant extended to the specification and selection process for the machinery and equipment in it. This helped to guarantee that the best and most suitable technology was chosen, including the cranes, which are instrumental to production.
“We cannot produce without cranes. And without reliable cranes, there can be delays,” says Shin, who, with his colleagues, considered three major crane brands before selecting Konecranes.
“Make in India” - quality
To deliver the safety, accuracy and reliability vital to their role in assembling switchgear of up to 800 kilovolt-amperes (kVA), the 20 units of 5-20-ton Konecranes CXT overhead cranes and the eight 3.2-ton wall travelling cranes installed at the plant were all manufactured in India. The cranes’ tasks include the critical process of accurately joining major assemblies before SF6 gas insulation is introduced.
“Make in India requirements – as well as the availability of prompt service and maintenance backup from a local source – were very important to the Power Grid Corporation,” says Shin, who recalls that the final selection and equipment specification process was impressively streamlined.
Satisfying requirements
Konecranes India uses their extensive knowledge to comply promptly with local statutory regulations and engineering and manufacturing requirements. Thus, while cranes and related steel structures are typically manufactured together in Hyosung’s home base of Korea, the units at the Pune plant were manufactured separately in India.
“This was not a problem for us,” asserts Pankaj Potdar, Assistant Manager of Equipment Sales at Konecranes India. “The structures we built in compliance with local requirements were some of the highest quality ever. Where structural steel variations of 5-20mm are typical, our Konecranes structure had zero-zero variation, which was unprecedented.”
