Transport Air-conditioning & Refrigeration (Trans ACNR) is a leading provider of air-conditioning and refrigeration solutions for buses and trucks in India. The company represents two global brands in the Indian market – Hwa Sung Thermo of Korea for truck refrigeration and Jingyi of China for bus air-conditioning systems.Trans ACNR was started in 2003 by a young group of engineers who have specialised in transport air-conditioning and refrigeration. This young team, with strong service orientation, ventured to start Trans ACNR Solutions with a small investment of Rs. 60,000. Of this amount, Rs. 52,000 was invested in a laptop for the business, recalls Mr. Shatrughan Kumar, Managing Director and founder of the company.
Trans ACNR first started working with Hwa Sung Thermo for truck refrigeration units, and within the next four months, the company started selling Jingyi brand bus air-conditioning units in India. Eight years and thousands of installations across India, Trans ACNR has by now established itself as a reliable partner for bus air-conditioning and truck refrigeration systems. What is more, for the past eight years it continues to work with Hwa Sung Thermo and Jingyi. This has helped strengthen relationships with the principals and, most importantly, with the Indian customers, says Mr. Shatrughan.
Hwa Sung Thermo is a global leader in truck refrigeration and produces over 10,000 units annually for fresh, frozen and deep frozen applications and has the largest range of products for transport refrigeration. Within a short span of time, over 2,000 refrigerated vehicles are equipped with Hwa Sung thermo refrigeration units which are successfully in operation in India. “Our units are specially designed to meet Indian standards and climate conditions. We are extremely competitive with quality, cost and delivery. It’s ably supported with after-sales service and ready availability of genuine spare parts”, Mr. Shatrughan adds.
Jingyi manufactures over 20,000 bus air-conditioners annually. With a vast global customer base, including OEMs. Jingyi has in-house manufacturing and testing facilities, equipped with the world class machineries and equipments. The product range, from 5 KW to 44 KW, are suitable for Indian buses having seating capacity of 8 to 72. It also manufactures cabin air-conditioners for trucks, roof mounting and free flow air-conditioners for ambulances and special-purpose vehicles.
“Initially, we did face resistance from market reason being of Chinese origin brand. To differentiate ourselves, we have had regular orientation on product familiarisation, workshops, training and regular customer visits to witness quality manufacturing of air-conditioning & testing at Jingyi, China. Trans ACNR has spent considerable time and efforts in building both the brands”, says by Mr. Shatrughan.
In the bus air-conditioning business, the company imports complete units as well as critical components from Jingyi, and some of the components are sourced directly from other established manufacturers such as Bitzer, Bock, Valeo, SPAL, Kingbo, Goodyear and Prestolite. Our lead time of imports is 4-6 weeks and in-between we can supply 100-150 units and it can be further improved, he adds.The transport air-conditioning and refrigeration industry is service driven, to meet customer expectations, Trans ACNR has company-owned sales and service centre in Delhi, Mohali, Bangalore, Cochin and Chennai. Residence sales and service technicians are also located at Patna, Jamshedpur, Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Its dealer network covers Indore, Lucknow, Ahmadabad, Gowahati, Surat, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmednagar and Goa, according to Mr. Prem Sharma, CEO of the company.
“We are strongly working of service networking and in near future, we will deploy service technicians at every 400 km to meet timely service requirement of customers. Not only that, the service & repair down shall be improved enabling customers to generate maximum revenue from optimum utilisation of vehicles operation”, says Mr. Prem Sharma.
In the recent past, considerable demand is witnessed in smaller segment coaches, ambulances and luxury mobile homes. With this; the company has established manufacturing facility at Manesar, Haryana, for roof mounting bus air-conditioners. Trans ACNR is also engaged in the manufacture of pulleys, mounting brackets for compressors & alternators, auxiliary power pack units and hose assemblies, he adds.
Trans ACNR supplies Jingyi bus ACs to SML Isuzu for its 5m, 7m and 9m executive coaches. Tata Motors is also conducting extensive testing of Jingyi bus ACs and expecting its official approval too. The company is also exploring business possibilities with other OEMs like Ashok Leyland and Eicher. In fact in the after-market, most of the Eicher chassis are fitted with Jingyi bus ACs and/or Hwa Sung thermo, refrigeration units.
Asked about emerging competition from global brands and other Indian manufacturers, Mr. Shatrughan said that the current volumes and market spread are not favourable for big players. The operational cost will be extremely high for such players, which will make their product unviable in comparisons to established brands like Jingyi and Hwa Sung thermo.Trans ACNR has witnessed steady growth since inception beginning. The company will end the year with sales of Rs. 28 crores, which is a 100 per cent growth over the last year. Jingyi is all set to form a JV company with Trans ACNR enabling it to secure market leadership through quality products and service network. The breakeven point for a JV company is 2,000 units, which will be achieved by 2012, according to Mr. Shatrughan.
The company is debt-free and has established its presence in the transport air-conditioning and refrigeration segment and is looking forward to expanding into cold storage applications.
