Ador envisions providing complete welding solutions to manufacturing sector
Ador Welding, the pioneer and leader in welding in India, has traversed a long journey since 1951, partaking in the post-independence industrialization in the country by providing comprehensive solutions for metal joining, metal cutting and automated welding. Ador firmly believes in import substitution and indigenization of manufacture and has come up with several path-breaking products and solutions required for critical applications in a crosssection of the industry in which the priority sector is predominant. Mr. P.K. Balasubbramaniian speaks to Mr. Satish Bhat, Managing Director, Ador Welding to capturethe spirit of innovation of this home grown company which is currently on a growth trajectory and is giving a new fillip to the ‘make in India’ mission. Excerpts:
Q. Ador Welding carries the sobriquet, ‘Welders to the Nation’. How do you substantiate this positioning?
Over the past sixty-eight years, Ador Welding Limited (AWL for short) has been manufacturing the finest welding consumables and equipment to cater to requirements across industries. As pioneers in Welding, since 1951, we have played a major role in India’s infrastructural transformation. Our products have been used by the entire industry spectrum. Besides, we have also been actively involved in research in welding and training in skill development for welding engineers, supervisors and welders for around six decades now. We have managed to blend our offerings in tune with the requirements of the industry.
We carry our commitment to welding with even more vigour and enthusiasm today with our unstinted passion and are a revered brand name today. This zeal for welding has translated in to our new tag line ‘Passion for Welding since 1951’. Undoubtedly today Ador Welding has the largest capacity for manufacturing welding products in India with its four manufacturing plants and reach to the market through its 11 area offices and more than 100 sales and service employees.
Q. You have a glorious past. What’s the legacy you have inherited?
Our company is running a legacy that dates back to more than six and half decades. It was established three days prior to the first ever general election of independent India on the red-letter day of 22nd October 1951. Since its inception, it has traversed a long journey which has served as prime source of employment for hundreds of employees all these years. We have been hailed as nothing short of a national heritage due to our premier welding and associated service and the main architects to lay the foundation stone for the post-independence industrialization in our country. Since our establishment, we have been the foremost choice for the finest Welding Consumables & Equipment, Welding Automation Products and Systems, CNC cutting systems, PPE & Gas cutting products and accessories. Innovation is in the DNA of the company. Ador Welding has also invested heavily in R&D of welding products and I am proud to state that almost all products that we offer are developed indigenously with local talent.
Q. How comprehensive and all-pervading are your welding and cutting solutions?
We are widely respected as a pioneer and leader in the welding industry providing the finest Welding Consumables & Equipment, Welding Automation solutions, CNC cutting systems, PPE & Gas cutting products and accessories. The Project Engineering Business (PEB) of AWL is a forward integration of its welding capabilities. PEB manufactures Gas flares for refineries and steel plants, Process Equipment for Petrochemical Industries, Fertilizer and Chemical plants, Heat Exchangers and Pressure vessels, Furnaces for Cremators and Incinerators and has most recently forayed into EPC contracts in India and abroad. AWL, best known now by its new slogan “Passion for Welding since 1951’, provides its comprehensive range of products to industries like Automobile, Wind Energy, Thermal & Nuclear Power, Heavy Engg, Mining, Chemical and Fertilizer, Oil & Gas, PEB, Railways, Defence, Infrastructure and many others ensuring the highest level of welding & fabrication excellence. AWL has evolved with the growing demands of the industry and is India’s largest manufacturer of welding consumables catering to the Domestic market and an International clientele spanning more than forty countries!
Q. What’s your present range of manufacture?
We manufacture everything in the welding space for all welding processes viz; SMAW, GMAW, GTAW, SAW, ESSC, Resistance Welding, etc. It means we manufacture all types of Welding consumables, Welding Equipment and Automation solutions for welding. Besides, Ador Welding Academy is in the vanguard of welding education and skill development in the country
Q. Could you throw some light on your manufacturing facilities and wherewithal?
Our business model is based on Manufacturing of welding products at four strategically located manufacturing plants across the country and selling them to direct customers and through a wide network of more than a thousand distributors and channel partners and a team of around one hundred sales and service engineers spread across the country. We have our eleven area offices located the country and four manufacturing facilities at Pune, Ahmednagar, Silvassa & Raipur. We have modern manufacturing Plant & Machinery, Testing facility, third party approvals for products, plant and combinations. All plants are ISO 9001-2015, ISO 14001-2015 and EMS 18001-2007 certified. We advocate green manufacturing hence also have installed a solar plant at Raipur and in process / assessment for our Pune facility. We have state-of-the-art ETP and STP facility and do a lot of water harvesting at our factories with the highest capacity for manufacturing of Welding Equipment in India.
Q. How do you instill quality in your products and services?
We have our own self-imposed quality standards. Our comprehensive and stringent QA procedures are compliant to international standards. We have extensive testing facilities e.g; Corrosion tests as per NACE standards, Corrosion practices for stainless steel as per ASTM A262 & ASTM A923, Fractional toughness test – CTOD, High temperature strength especially for creep resistant material. We have Special testing equipment like Optical Emission Spectrometers, Carbon-Sulphur Analyzers, Gas Chromatographs, Metallurgical Microscope with Image Analyzer Software and more.
We have a fully equipped in-house laboratory at our Technology Development Center in Pune (NABL accredited) and both our Silvassa and Raipur plants are equipped with the latest instruments for carrying out required tests and trials e.g. ICP, XRF. We are the only company in this field to have a “Clean room” for the manufacture of inverter welding equipment in India and humidity control testing equipment, Hannover analyzers, etc. We have invested heavily in R&D facilities at our Technology Development Centers for wholly indigenously manufactured products. Our product design & development capabilities are unmatched both for welding consumables and equipment.
Q. What are the quality systems and standards you follow? And your products must be carrying several approvals?
We are ISO 9001:2015 certified for our Quality management Systems and our products are approved by national and international approval agencies like ABS, LRA, DNV, BV, RDSO, CE and CWB. Our products are approved by top companies like NTPC, BHEL, ONGC, Reliance, L&T, PDO, NPCC, etc. This makes our products preferred by end -users across industrial sectors on the most critical applications in Nuclear Power, Refineries, Off shore rigs, Shipping industries, Naval applications, Defence establishments, Mining, Infrastructure projects, Hydel Power plants, Heavy Engineering, Automobile, Steel plants, Thermal Power, Gas pipelines & Railway projects.
Q. What’s your catalytic contribution to ‘nation building’?
‘Make in India’ has been our motto. We don’t buy and sell. We develop capabilities to meet constantly evolving market needs.We firmly believe in indigenization and all our products are made in India. Our work
for developing import substitutes has been pathbreaking with top PSUs like BARC, NMRL, DRDO, etc. Many monuments of national importance have been built using our special welding consumables and equipment be it the Bhakhra Nangal dam in Punjab that was completed in the early 1960s to the Bogie beel bridge in Assam to the world’s tallest rail bridge being built near Jammu to the Adi Shiva yogi statue. We have a unique customer- centric behavior inculcated in our ethos and we consciously work towards developing solutions. We have been a complete welding solutions provider to the world of manufacturing with our versatile range of products. Refineries, Steel plants, Hydel Power plants, Therma Power Plants, Oil and Gas pipelines, Automotive, Mining and many more industries have all been using our products.
Digitalization of our systems and processes has led to a discernable improvement in time to delivery and product life cycle management. Our exclusively designed apps for business intelligence, customer order processing & sales management have enhanced efficiencies greatly. The latest and most versatile process that we have introduced to the world of welding is the Tip-Tig process which essentially gives excellent quality welding at almost three times the speeds of conventional Tig welding and greatly improves welder efficiency and productivity besides giving exceptional quality. This versatile process also reduced heat input compared to conventional Tig and greatly eases the Tig welding process itself making it an easier job for the welder.
Q. You are in the vanguard of welding education. What’s your role in skill development as well as women empowerment?
We have separate skill development institute “Ador Welding Academy” to enhance the skill set of Students, Professionals and trainers. Through AWA, Ador Welding has progressively extended its knowledge and
expertise to cover specializations by catering to the most stringent and sophisticated demands of the industry. We are associated with the National Skill Development Council (NSDC) and ‘Skill India’ through the National Skill Mission towards developing the welding skill set in the country. We have trained more than 100 women welders in the past year or so especially those from the economically challenged sections of the society and have made them gainfully employed in the industry. This mission also forms a very important part of our CSR activities. One of the differentiating USPs of our academy that makes it stand out amongst peers is that we have a 100% employment record of students from economically backward strata of society. We believe in making lives of people and not just train them.
Q. You claim to be in the cutting edge of technology. What are the technological innovations you have spearheaded recently?
As mentioned earlier innovation is in the DNA of Ador Welding Ltd. We continuously innovate our all business processes, systems, process and also innovate products and services. All the products and services offered by Ador are developed in-house with local talent in line with “Make In India” ethos at the heart of it. The fact that around 70 employees are engaged in Design and R&D activities at Ador Welding, speaks volumes for our efforts towards offering new technology.
Aiding this endeavor is world-class infrastructure for Design and R&D activities that gives us cutting edge in offering new technologies at highest speeds.We have the first and only clean room for the manufacture of inverter welding equipment in the country which gives our welding inverter equipment cutting edge quality that has resulted in an unparalleled 3- year warranty for our welding equipment. Our Welding equipment model Champ T400 has won the “India Design Award” for the best industrial design last year. The Champ Pulse 500 is India’s only indigenously made pulse MiG welding machine at par with world standards. We have developed welding consumables with creep data for high temperature high strength applications for refineries, fertilizer& power plants.
Our consumables are used extensively in Nuclear applications too. Our work with top defence research establishments has led to the development of consumables for DMR249A and HLES grade steels for warships and submarines. We have designed and supplied equipped Diesel engine-driven welding sets to work at high altitudes at subzero temperature for the Armed forces. Our Welding equipment can now be IOT and AI enabled to ensure that we are in sync with the latest industrial revolution that is happening around the world in industry 4.0. Our work on high strength alloys for fabrication of complex structures to the tune of 120,000 psi and more and development of flux-cored wires for 9 Cr 1/2moly steels is path-breaking. We are perhaps the only Indian company to have developed consumables. for the Electroslag Strip cladding process. Our Stainless steel consumables are designed to meet severe impact conditions of up to -196 degrees C with excellent lateral expansion values. The introduction of Tig-Tig technology makes GTAW welding possible at high speeds essentially giving Tig quality at Mig welding speeds! These are a few of the innovations that set us apart from domestic and international competition.
Q. Which are your market segments and who are your major customers?
AWL, best known as ‘Welders to the Nation’, provides its comprehensive range of products to industries like Automobile, Wind Energy, Thermal & Nuclear Power, Heavy Engg, Mining, Chemical and Fertilizer, Oil & Gas, PEB, Railways, Defence, Infrastructure and others ensuring the highest level of welding & fabrication excellence. Companies like L&T, Reliance, Maruti- Suzuki, BEML, TATA, Godrej, Yamaha, Ford, Hyundai, Alfa laval, Royal Enfield, Bajaj, ONGC, HMEL, BPCL,SKF , FLSmidth, SAIL, Aditya Birla Group, Coal India , MRPL, Cochin Shipyard, BHEL, Railways and Defence are a few of the many names on the domestic scene. In the International markets we have ASRY, NPCC, Dangote, Petrofac, KOC, KNPC, QP, Eversendai to name just a few.
Q. Please tell us about your export performance and reach.
AWL has been exporting since the 1960s when it became arguably independent India’s first exporter for welding consumables . Our products are approved by all major oil& gas companies and top construction & infrastructure companies in the Middle East and Africa and also by many top consumers in South East Asia. We have an entire team of sales and service personnel posted at our international business office in Sharjah
and a strong network of distributors who ensure prompt deliveries. We have been expanding our network of end-users and distributors across the globe and are looking at a double digit growth in our international business this year.
Q. What’s your vision for Ador?
We are on a mission to provide complete welding solutions to the world of manufacturing for enhancing their operational efficiencies.
My vision for Ador Welding is to take it to Rs.1000 crores of turnover in the next five years. In the short term we have targeted Rs.600 crores by 2019-20.
