Diesel and gasoline fuel systems manufacturer, Stanadyne, unveiled EcoForce, a new fuel injection system for the off-road and tractor engine market. This system, said Dr. John Pinson, President and CTO, Stanadyne, “reduces particulate emissions by 50 per cent and enhances the fuel efficiency by up to eight per cent.” According to Dr. Pinson, EcoForce is based on an innovative design concept for the under 50 hp market that offers superior engine performance and fuel economy with a lower total cost of ownership. Manufactured at the company’s Chennai plant, EcoForce is 90 per cent localised. Commenting on the robustness of the system, Sanjay Chadda, Managing Director, Stanadyne India, said, “The new fuel system can take any fuel available in India. We have even tested this system with kerosene.” Stanadyne’s products often go into engines that find use in the farming, construction and industrial sectors. Ironically, these sectors, experts opine, contribute to 95 per cent of off-road particulate emissions. “Stanadyne’s research and development engineering team has developed this new product to address the dual concerns of the Indian sub-continent. These are high fuel costs and air quality emissions,” explained Dr. Pinson.

The company has already factored in the current emission standards for diesel (agricultural) tractors.

S Jayabalan, Sr. General Manager, Stanadyne India, said, “This product is designed to comply with current emission level of Stage 3 A, which will prevail for the next 10 years.” Elaborating on the fuel savings in per centage terms, and how it will translate into monetary gains for the farmer, Chadda stated, “For a farmer who runs a tractor for approximately 1,000 hours in a year, the fuel saving derived from EcoForce should translate into Rs.14,000 to 15,000 (per year).” Escorts, which has tied up with Stanadyne for the new EcoForce technology, is jointly working on the development of the product and subsequent commercial launch in 2016. Rajeev Dhiman, Head, Engine Design and Testing at Escorts Agricultural Machinery, said, “We will test the performance of EcoForce on our tractors during a complete duty cycle of the tractors to ensure zero breakdown.” With the introduction of the new EcoForce fuel pump, Chadda opined that they are looking at enhancing the capacity to 2,30,000 units over the next two years with an investment of Rs.100 crore. Stanadyne, currently, rolls out 85,000 pumps from its Chennai facility annually, housing a fully integrated engineering and technology team which manages the design, development, testing and manufacturing of its products. The company recorded a turnover of Rs. 170 crore in FY2014-15. The aim is to double it by 2018.

Interview — Bhargav TS: Sanjay Chadda, Managing Director, Stanadyne India

Can you tell us about the new products that Stanadyne is working on?

We are working on the next stage of common rail diesel injection systems for passenger cars. This is currently under development, and we plan to launch it in the coming future.

How unique, in terms of technological advancements, is this new common rail fuel injection system?

We need to bring in a differentiation which will stand out from the current technology, used by almost all OEMs. We are working on including the voice of the customer, in order to fill in these technological gaps. In 2012, we saw common rail reach maturity in the Indian market. We plan to applicate that across the nation in 2017. Given that the requirement of common rail systems is only likely to increase with the impending new emission norms for on-road vehicles expected by 2020, we are considering future requirements, based on the emission standard, and are also working to mitigate the gaps suppliers have today.

Tell us about the engineering centre at Chennai?

This centre has been labelled as the ‘Centre of Excellence’ for mechanical fuel injection systems. At our Chennai plant we manufacture the smaller engines (single cylinder), single cylinder pump, rotary pump and injectors. In the development centre, we develop advanced injection systems which are currently used in Europe for diesel engines. These are manufactured in India and exported.
What are the advantages of newly launched fuel injection system?

We have developed this new fuel injection system to achieve breakthrough efficiency, increased performance and lower emissions. It can take fuel available from any part of India. It has been tested with kerosene as well.

OEMs are focusing on standardisation to enable a global platform, while conversely there are also talks about ‘customised solutions’. Could you elaborate on this?

OEMs primarily develop global platforms as it helps not only to contain cost, but also to reduce the development time. However, it is necessary to customise solutions according to the target markets. The emerging trend is to make the core development to happen in the major market and take the same to the other markets. For instance, India is a market for small cars and therefore OEMs are making the vehicle development on that platform led out of India for the world. They are positioning themselves in terms of the segment that the vehicle is targeted at, and the relative development. We see a convergence happening in this perspective.