The bearings industry is on the road to recovery now after facing a tough market due to global economic meltdown and recession, which had a direct bearing on the business as a whole in India.


The year 2010, however, brings with it a note of positive nature for the bearings industry in India which is likely to witness a huge demand surge, especially in large size bearings.

Also, as consumers get more demanding and product liability and safety issues get more stringent, there is a need for a qualitative leap in the performance of the bearings.

Meeting these two requirements in a competitive fashion will be the key challenge for the year ahead.

Ajay Das, Managing Director, Timken India, said, “There is an increasing trend of designing and manufacturing of heavy industrial equipment in India, resulting in customers asking for the design and application engineering knowledge and assistance. In many applications, bearings are the limiting factor in increasing the power density of the equipment and also one of the first components to get damaged.

Hence, working with customers and to help them make optimum design choices is an important customer expectation now.’’ Finally, customers are asking for more competitiveness and responsiveness from the bearing industry.

Traditionally, while most of the bearings companies focus on how to make acceptable performance bearings at a competitive cost, bearing manufacturers will invest heavily into analyzing and understanding the interaction between bearings and its supporting and surrounding components to help customers develop a better overall power train system versus what is available today.

“This will help optimize the system for better overall performance at an optimum cost. At Timken, engineers and technologists are already working on these new possibilities.

For example, planetary gear systems are used to transfer power in a variety of industries, from automotive and agriculture to aerospace and defence. Conventional systems have evolved to the point where further refinements can only result in modest performance and capacity gains,’’ he said.

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