Rotork India Pvt. Ltd.: a key link in Rotork’s global actuator supply chain

As a manufacturer, supplier and solution provider, Rotork India Pvt. Ltd. goes from strength to strength. In a little over 40 years the company has grown from a joint venture into what has today become a cornerstone of Rotork’s global business, so it not surprising that the company has some ambitious plans for the future. The Valve World India Journal recently caught up with Mr. Ravi Shankar, Managing Director of Rotork India Pvt.Ltd. at his office in Chennai, to discuss such topics as the company’s fluid power product range, its updated small electric quarter-turn range of products, the very successful sales being achieved with its electro-hydraulic range of products to Indian tank farms and of course, their continuing success and plans for the future.

Talk to Mr. Shankar for a few minutes and you are immediately struck by his enthusiasm for the industry in which he works and by his knowledge over a vast array of valve-related topics. This is not unexpected since in his job as Managing Director of Rotork India Pvt. Ltd. he is responsible for all the company’s operations in India. His tasks includes sales, manufacturing, services, the R&D centre and global R&D, as well as supporting Rotork’s global IT. “It is a challenging package of activities but also a very rewarding one at a time when Rotork is not only becoming increasingly important in India but also as the whole of India becomes a major hub in the global supply chain of valves.”

A brief history of Rotork in India

Rotork’s initial entry into the Indian marketplace, Mr. Shankar tells us, was in a joint venture with Best and Crompton. The venture was formed in response to the closure of the Indian market to foreign-imported actuators by the Indian Government. In 1978 this undertaking was further broadened when Rotork took a 40% stake in a joint venture called Beacon Rotork Controls Ltd. A few years later during the 1990s, under the more liberalised leadership of the then Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Government revoked the mandatory need for joint ventures by foreign entities, allowing them once more to have their own local facilities. Rotork took advantage of this situation taking over complete ownership of the subsidiary by buying out their joint venture partner. Since then the company has been a 100%-owned subsidiary of Rotork plc and has invested in three modern manufacturing plants – two in Chennai and a third in Bangalore. The Bangalore plant was set up in 2010 and the second Chennai facility is completely new, being inaugurated early in 2018. Today Rotork India Pvt. Ltd. employs around 250 staff, but 40 years on from the company’s start up in India it still has a plant in the same location in Chennai where it all began.

Rotork’s fluid power product range

The new facility in Chennai, which went into production in January of 2018, concentrates on the production of Rotork’s fluid power product range. This means pneumatic, hydraulic, electro-hydraulic, and gas-over-oil actuators. As such the company produces a wide range of actuators covering almost every type that is available on the market. Before the inauguration of the new factory all these actuators were made in Europe. Mr. Shankar takes up the story: “Producing out of Europe, it was difficult for us to meet some of the price targets and lead times in India and as a result Rotork’s market share remained niche in what is essentially a very large market, so it was logical to start-up production in India.”

In recent years, industrial growth in India has been rapid, which has naturally considerably increased the demand for actuators, so Rotork’s move to produce more products in India has been in line with many other international companies, who have also looked to pick up this expanding business. However, it is not only international companies that have begun to profit from the situation. Indian regional companies have sprung up to meet this demand as well.

Another factor leading to the upsurge in actuator business in India has been that suppliers have gradually come to look upon India as a good quality and cost-effective manufacturing destination. Rotork has supported this development by ensuring that more of its products are also made locally. At present its pneumatic and hydraulic ranges are manufactured in India. By the end of the year it intends to also make the linear electro-hydraulic range as well. Mr. Shankar: “We produce 400 of these actuators per month working in single shift at our new facility in Chennai so we could easily double this figure by moving to two shifts should the demand increase even further. Additionally, by producing in India we are able to get our products to this regional market quicker and in a more cost-effective way. Furthermore, our products produced in India have the same global quality and warranty as any of Rotork’s other production sites in the world. For us, at present, around 60% of our production is sold within India and the other 40% is sold for export.

Electric quarter-turn actuators produced in Bangalore

The Q range actuator has always been a strong part of Rotork’s quarter-turn product range, but it was originally only available in a single-phase version with a limited torque range. It is a product that is made solely in India, but which is exported globally. It was designed to meet industry’s need for a compact and trustworthy actuator, providing a simple and cost-effective way of controlling small quarter-turn valves and dampers where IP68 (NEMA6) watertight enclosure is required.

It is suitable for isolating duties where on/off control is required. This is achieved without the need for reversing contactors, requiring only simple wiring, whilst the design of the limit switch mechanism has been arranged to ensure ease of setting and reliability. The Q-pak version benefits from the addition of a specially designed control interface module, which enables it to operate from a wide variety of remote control signals and provides status monitoring outputs. The range has been recently expanded and is now available to operate on a 3-phase supply with upgraded toque output up to 900 Nm. We produce in the region of 2,000 units a year,” says Mr. Shankar “the range being mainly used in the water and wastewater and power industries.