Reva Industries, based at Okhla Industrial Area in New Delhi, India, produces electric overhead cranes, electric wire rope hoists, gearboxes and other components. It is not, according to joint managing director Balraj Goel, competing with big players such as Demag, Columbus McKinnon or Kito as far as manufacturing volume is concerned, but it can claim to produce cranes and hoists of a world-class standard.
And now it is looking to step up its export efforts and gain an international presence. As part of its drive to accelerate export growth, Reva exhibited at the CeMAT material handling section of Germany’s Hannover Fair in March.
Reva Industries was established in 1963 by Som Prakash Goel, the father of the current management team, as a small engineering concern, producing machined parts for the automobile industry. It slowly grew into a major manufacturer of original equipment components for various types of tractors and two-wheelers. Reva had the credit of being the leading supplier of machined parts to Escorts, a company with a big name in India for producing a wide range of construction equipment including cranes, and motorcycles. Reva won several laurels from the industry for its performance in supplying machined components.
In 1980, Reva expanded its activities and added a materials handling equipment division. Initially, manufacturing and marketing was limited to chain pulley blocks and electric wire rope hoists, but the aim was to enter the market with well designed lightweight overhead cranes.
The automotive components division was separated from materials handling in 1986 and the company set out with renewed vigour to design and manufacture electric overhead cranes. Right from the start, Reva set out to produce a quality product and with this in view, it benchmarked its products with one of the world’s top crane manufacturers for design improvements.
A number of features seen for the first time in India were introduced. These included the use of helical hardened and profile ground gears, manufactured from low carbon alloy steel, hardened and shrunk-fit wheels, better and more efficient controls such as variable voltage and variable frequency AC drives.
A concerted effort was made to upgrade manufacturing facilities with the latest CNC machining centres and CNC turning centres to upgrade the product. Help was also obtained from a leading German manufacturer to bring the product to a world class level. Reva has the distinction of being the first Indian company to obtain an ISO-9001 certification from DNV Netherlands for its crane and hoist production.
Initial difficulties with establishing the cranes and hoists in the market were soon overcome and Reva became a well known name in hydroelectric projects, power stations, railway workshops, maintenance depots and industrial installations.
The company is run by brothers Shiv and Balraj Goel, who are joint managing directors. The third generation is now also involved – Rohit Goel, son of Balraj and a director of the company, brings more sophistication in design and production techniques. He is part of a separate development team aimed at achieving constant improvement through software and other innovation.
Reva has 250 employees and manufactures virtually all components in-house. The in-house facility includes foundry, machine shop, fabrication shop, gear shop and CNC shop.
At the moment Reva is manufacturing around 500 electric wire rope hoists and 80 EOT cranes a year. Reva’s strength lies in its design and manufacturing capabilities aside from a highly trained and motivated work force, Balraj says. Recently the company has started offering engineering software solutions apart from specifically designed Enterprise Resource Planning solutions.
Though Reva Industries started as a small company, it has supplied cranes, hoists and other components to leading users in India including, among others, Indian Railways, the National Thermal Power Corporation, Bharat Heavy Electricals and the Indian Oil Corporation.
