Though the Covid 19 pandemic pulled the market back, India has a promising future. As assembly experts, Atlas Copco combines innovative assembly technologies like tightening, self-pierce riveting, adhesive dispensing, etc that increase productivity In this interview, K Aurunagiri, Business Line Manager - Motor Vehicle Industry, Atlas Copco, elaborates more on the company’s offerings and growth plans.

Is Atlas Copco expanding its automotive segment business?
Atlas Copco has geared up to meet the future needs of automotive business emerging out of the need for sustainability norms. Our presence as a strategic partner programme with key automotive companies across the world is rapidly increasing. We have established our infrastructure to meet the future demands of automotive sector - including electric vehicles (EV) needs - in terms of combined solutions of adhesive bonding, flow drill fastening, and assembly solutions with error proofing/position control solutions.

In addition to our existing product portfolio, some of the areas we have expanded our presence globally are adhesive solutions and machine vision solutions for surface inspections.

Share some key solutions offered by Atlas Copco that made difference.
innovative assembly technologies like tightening, self-pierce riveting, adhesive dispensing and flow drill fastening and offer dedicated solutions that increase productivity and customer challenges.

How Atlas Copco contributes to the concept of Make in India by encouraging homegrown manufacturing?
is a long-term vision and we have established Application Centre in India way back in 2011 and are proud to state being one among the 5 Application Centres across the world. At Application Centre, our commitment is to deliver world class engineering delivered to our customers in India. We can proudly state that 9 out of 10 wheel assembly machines delivered to automotive customers in India as designed and delivered from our Application Centre in India.

How has the pandemic impacted your business?
We see a temporary reduction in demand for our solutions during the pandemic period during Q1 of this financial year. But as we progress, we see the production gearing up further and demand for our solutions inupstick with customer’s demand for digitalization accelerating further.We have solutions across the industry from a tier 1 partner to OEMs to meet their varied demands. Our solutions are flexible and scalable to meet the dynamic demands of our customers. For example, a solution which can be used in a sub assembly station can be implemented individually can be scaled to a complete assembly line as the need increases.

Do you believe that the Indian market will see a faster recovery?
I believe Indian market has a promising future for automotive industry to grow, though the pandemic has pulled us back in our growth trajectory. The recovery curve which has started now would accelerate when the demand increases. As we see Indian and Asian players are becoming the dominant force now with ambitious plans getting announced, we see acceleration by mid of 2022.

Share some key trends in the industry shaping up the pumps and valves industry in India.
We see a steady increase in this industry in India with increased demand for varied applications in this sector. The demand of pumps is driven by the need for energy efficient needs and awareness increasing in terms of conservation among the users.