Ferrari-Eastern joint venture for industrial fans

TM-Dec-12-26_1With a completely Italian-made production output, Ferrari Ventilatori is an European point of reference in the field of low, medium and high pressure industrial ventilation.

F.lli Ferrari Ventilatori Industriali S.p.A. which was founded in 1960 in Arzignano, Vicenza, by Antonio and Mario Ferrari, has stood out in the market for more than 40 years with a range of technologically advanced products.

Since inception, the company goal is to stay ahead of times through investments and R&D, the chain focussed as always on the finest quality.

The Ferrari brand has a worldwide reputation as a result of its approach adopted at the start of this successful industrial adventure. The high efficiency axial, centrifugal and plug fans from Ferrari find a variety of applications across various industries.

TM-Dec-12-27_1Ferrari is today a strategic partner in many segments, including glass, paper, cement, textile air engineering, with a wide product range, particularly for high pressure fans where pneumatic transportation is involved.

The company produces two types of industrial fan – centrifugal and axial. With over 300 OE customers all over the world, and 30,000 m² of factory premises, it turns out 35,000 fans every year.

Eastern is one among the most reputed textile machinery firms in India. Established by one of India’s earliest textile engineering graduates, D. Ramanna, on the cusp of Independence, the firm is present across the spectrum of products that make up the industry.

The textile industry saw some path-breaking events in the early 1980s and Eastern, headed by R. Anand, was instrumental in many of these.

Among them were the establishment of India’s first 100 per cent EOUs in spinning and terry towel weaving respectively. These mills set the benchmarks for the industry and opened the floodgates for others to follow.

TM-Dec-12-27_2As mill after mill took the 100 per cent EOU route to growth, Eastern contributed to their successes by introducing these mills to new technologies and equipment that put them on par with their peers internationally. It was Eastern that introduced the importance of humidification in textile mills and when the first installation documented the benefits there was no looking back.

Ferrari and Eastern signed a joint venture agreement last year to establish a company, known as Ferrari Eastern Fans India Private Ltd. (FEFI) that would assemble fans and significantly reduce the barriers to higher business volumes in India.

The new company will also help Ferrari enter new segments of industry which are important fan markets. The Indian company has already bagged a couple of orders from non-textile companies, but believes that customers in the textile vertical having experienced the superior quality of Ferrari fans already working in their mills will welcome the establishment of a company locally. The planning is underway and the company expects to roll out its first product from its Bangalore plant in early 2013.

Sergio Vinci, Vice Chairman of Ferrari, Italy, visited India-ITME 2012. He observed: “The ultimate efficiency of a fan is closely linked to the ability of the designer to manage the trade-off between aerodynamic and mechanical aspects of the fan design.” This is a parameter of keen interest to Indian customers.

Because of their advanced technology and quality, Ferrari fans position themselves as a premium player within the industry. India being a nation where people are very price conscious, one may question the selling power of the Indian entity. But when asked, Ms. Shilpa Anand, Director, said: “Energy saving is an universal objective and we are increasingly more value conscious rather than simply cost conscious”.