The Hindu Business Line : Kone to start engineering centre

Chennai, Nov. 7 Kone Elevators India Pvt Ltd, the wholly owned subsidiary of Kone, Finland, has emerged as the centre for software, engineering and trained workforce for Kone’s operations globally.

The company, which is a market leader in India, is looking at expanding its production.

Engineering resource

According to Mr A. Sankarakrishnan, Managing Director, Kone Elevator India, the company will soon start an engineering centre in Chennai to handle the design for elevators for use in the US and Europe. The company is also starting an R&D centre for addressing the needs of India and Asia markets. Over 150-180 engineers are working in the high-end R&D facilities meeting Kone’s global needs for software, R&D and design, according to Mr Sankarakrishnan. Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, he said Kone India has also emerged the training centre for skilled workforce for installation and servicing of Kone elevators worldwide.

Kone India has been growing at about 30 per cent a year and has a capacity to deliver about 6,500 elevators a year out of its 8.4-acre factory near Chennai. The company would soon be stretched to capacity and has started work on the expansion plans. However, this would take two years, he said.

Kone India has a 26 per cent share in a market estimated close to 21,000 elevators a year. Kone India’s sales have grown nearly five times to over Rs 380 crore in 2006 against Rs 81 crore in 2002. In the same period, elevator orders have also touched Rs 460 crore in 2006 from 102 crore.

Kone India has emerged the main human resource centre for Kone globally, Mr Sankarakrishnan said. Kone India, which has a workforce of over 2,000 has in the last two years trained over 350 ITI graduates in installing and servicing Kone elevators. Of these over a 100 will go to Europe, US, Spain and Singapore to staff the field force for Kone in these countries, he said. The company has over 19,000 elevators in service and continuously needs to recruit to meet its own needs. Servicing elevators brings in about a fifth of its business, Mr Sankarakrishnan said.

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