Danfoss India to champion ‘Make in India, for India’; expands production and product portfolio at its Oragadam campus

Chennai: Danfoss Industries Pvt. Ltd., an industry leader in energy efficient solutions has announced its bullish stance on furthering the presence of its Drives segment in India, to further its localisation and support the GoI’s mission towards an ‘Athmanirbhar Bharat’. The Danfoss Group has made significant investments to the tune of INR 1000+ crores in last six years, to further the company’s commitment towards strengthening its local manufacturing and powering its capabilities towards India-focussed R&D and innovation.

Being the world’s first Mass Produced Drive player and pioneer in drives technology since 1968, Danfoss Drives has been an industry veteran in developing, manufacturing and supplying energy efficient technology & electrification solutions to meet the global demand for sustainable technology across key sectors including food processing, water, ports, chemical & pharma, metal, cement and paper among others.

By 2025, it is estimated that more than 5 billion people (over half the estimated world population) will benefit directly or indirectly from the value added by Danfoss Drives globally in their everyday lives. Additionally, the current installed base of drives is estimated to help to save the annual equivalent of 60 hours of global energy consumption.

Since the company began its independent operations in India, Danfoss India has quadrupled its localisation efforts in terms of production and supply chain capabilities and projects 90 percent localisation by 2022. Today, Danfoss Drives’ India Design Center serves as a hub for Global High Power Designs, Application Development Center and Product Engineering Center and Center of Excellence in heavy industries.

Speaking on the Danfoss Global Drives business, Mr. Vesa Laisi, President, Danfoss Drives said, “At Danfoss Drives, we are focussed on generating value from our decades of experience to help drive the sustainability goals of national and international governments, in a bid to help engineer a better and more sustainable future. Backed by a strong understanding of the global megatrends that are powering the world’s economic and social growth, we aim to push the boundaries of technology by innovating solutions to tackle climate change, helps cope with rapid urbanisation and helps improve standards of living among the citizens of the world.

Speaking on the Danfoss Drives in India, Mr. P L Palanisamy, Director – Danfoss Drives, Danfoss India said, “Since its inception, Danfoss India has viewed the region with vast growth potential. We continue to be the market leader across several verticals such as commercial buildings, chemical, power, textiles, cement, pulp & paper, etc. due to our continuous innovation and value addition to customers. With the wide-spread adoption of our drives across key Indian industries, we have increasingly strengthened our resolve to make our Danfoss Drives business self-reliant where ~80% of our supplies are produced from India Campus with an increasing focus on building a local supplier base and enhancing process innovation for our customers in India. We are optimistic that the move towards increasing investments in the Drive segments will stimulate continued growth for Danfoss in India.

With a steady focus on building a strong Global R&D & Engineering function, Danfoss India has built fresh avenues for customer and industry collaborations within the country to enhance the product testing capabilities at global standards and increase the speed of innovation. The company has also made huge strides in achieving maximum self-reliance right from the sourcing of raw materials to the delivery of the finished products in India. Currently, the final products from the Danfoss India campus are also exported to key markets such as US, Middle East, ASEA regions.

“Danfoss India’ commitment to India has been unwavering from the start and the recent increase in India investments of our Drives segment reinforces this commitment. The added step towards increasing our production lines is a testament to our success story in addressing the needs of our customers and the industry during these trying times. We remain steadfast in our journey towards complete localisation and stand in solidarity with the centre’s clarion call for “India for India” and the “Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan.”, said Mr. Ravichandran Purushothaman, President, Danfoss India.

As part of Danfoss’ commitment to India, the company had made extensive investments to further enhance the Drives Assembly and Manufacturing Facility in 2019 and commenced the manufacturing of P600 platform Drives from the Chennai campus, which is currently also exported to global markets. The current investment allows for further expansion (since August 2020) for the assembly of the FC51/FC360 range of drives to cater exclusively to the Indian market and further expand the P600 manufacturing line in the coming months. The new range of drives will create a significant impact towards improving energy efficiency and maximising energy productivity. The latest additions to the drives portfolio to assemble in India will drive up the percentage of sales of ‘Made in India’ drives to over 80%.

Danfoss Drives find extensive applications across a range of industries in India such as Food & Beverages, Plastics, HVAC, Air Compressor and Textile OEMs, Chemical, Cement, Steel, Water, Oil & Gas, Marine, Paper to name a few. 50 Acre Platinum rating Danfoss’ Chennai factory is equipped with two state of the art assembly lines for drives, full load & Harmonics testing facility up to 1MW including EMC labs. Additionally, all the necessary regulatory and customer approvals have been procured for the Chennai site.

Since March 2020, with the implementation of the nationwide lockdown, Danfoss India has demonstrated extreme business resilience and agility, ensuring minimal disruptions to its operations. While select production lines have already been ramped up to 100% capacity, a sizeable portion of the staff continues to work from home. Danfoss has ably leveraged its digital capabilities to conduct complex functions such as R&D and product inspections along with ensuring continued interaction with their customers and other stakeholders.

In its continued efforts towards sustainability, the company has committed to reduce the company’s energy intensity by 50% and double the company’s energy productivity before 2030 – both measured against the base year of 2007. It is also set to change its company car fleet to become all electric latest by 2030. In the coming years, Danfoss also aims to implement numerous measures to further reduce our energy consumption and drive greener technology investments in its buildings and processes.