With 1,500 employees and 200 distributors, the air compressor manufacturing major ELGi has expanded its footprint to 70 countries around the world. Here’s a report on the manufacturing capability of ELGi.

Elgi Equipments Ltd is an air compressor manufacturer that offers a complete range of air compressors from 1HP Piston to 2,000 HP centrifugal machine. ELGi does business in 70 countries and is directly present in 18 countries with manufacturing units in India, Italy and USA. The company has around 1,500 employees and 200 distributors worldwide. ELGi’s subsidiaries are ATS ELGi Ltd in India, Rotair Spa in Italy and Patton’s INC in USA. ELGi has a joint venture with ELGi Sauer Compressors in India. ELGi gets half of its revenue from outside India and 60 per cent of its international revenue comes from Europe and the America.

In Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, the world-class air compressor maker has two production plants – one for foundry and another for compressors.

Foundry Division
The foundry division at Coimbatore foundry produces high precision grey and SG iron castings using the most advanced and environment friendly processes. The production capacity of the foundry is of 9,000 metric tonnes per annum which means 750 tonnes per month and the average weight of the castings ranges from 30 to 3,200 kgs. The casting outcomes consist of stator body, centrifugal scroll, crank case and cast rotors – SG iron. The tolerances are of ISO 8062 CT 10 for linear dimensions with a wall thickness of CT II. The metallurgical and mechanical properties are SA 278, EN 1561 and EN 1563. Surface finish consists of level 2-3 of MSS-SP-112 and NDT is of level 1 in ANSI B 16.34, DIN 1690 part 2.

Compressors production plant
ELGi’s compressors production plant at Coimbatore has 50,00,000 sq. ft. of factory land which includes 10,00,000 sq ft. of factory space. The plant produces over 15,000 airends and 40,000 compressors per year. It is equipped with CNC horizontal and CNC vertical machining centres,rotor production with milling machine and grinding machine, airend assembly and compressor assembly line.

CNC horizontal and CNC vertical machining centres ensure superior quality manufacturing with a production capacity ranging from 03-250 kgs and 38,000 parts per year at an accuracy level of less than 2 microns. ELGi custom designs and builds its own rotor milling machines to produce quality rotors with lowest manufacturing cost. The airend assembly line has flow line conveyors manned by skilled and trained associates that have a production capacity of 15,000 airends per annum which comes with a life time warranty. The compressor conveyor assembly line has automated monitoring and testing stations with a production capacity of 15,000 screw air compressors and 25,000 piston compressors per year.

Quality assurance
The manufactured component and product passes through stringent quality audits and are tested to ensure performance and reliability. The manufacturing test rooms are atmospheric controlled. The products are built compliant to multiple international standards such as CE, ASME, UL, GB, ABNT and ISO 1217. The ELGi quality system is established in line with CE Certificate for Screw Compressors and ISO 9001: 2008, ISO 14001: 2004, BS OHSAS 18001:2007 Quality Management System Standard.

The state-of-the-art facilities conduct quality tests on ELGi products which include advanced measurement systems for housing and rotor, co-ordinate measuring machines, special purpose co-ordinate measuring machine for rotor measurement with feedback facility, metrology laboratory for calibration of measuring instruments and material testing, non-contact and non-destructive test facilities for material testing, a reliability engineering laboratory to test components for their reliability and lifecycle testing under extreme environmental conditions and air compressor test facility.

Products manufactured
The ranges of products manufactured by ELGi are piston compressors, electric lubricated screw compressors, electric oil- free screw compressors, portable compressors, air accessories, heat recovery system and railway compressors.

The Piston Compressors has two categories oil-free compressors and oil-lubricated compressors. The application area of the oil-free compressors are oxygen or nitrogen generation plants, laboratories, research facilities, pharmaceutical industry, food processing and packaging, electronics production, ozone generation, printing equipment, fermenters, applications that are zero tolerant to oil in compressed air, dental fermenters, gas, liquid and ion chromatography, food processing, small and sophisticated laboratory equipment.

The application area of Oil-Lubricated Compressors are automotive garages, wood working, small and medium fabrication units, pneumatic tools, concrete batch plants, LPG dispensing units, utility air in petrol pumps, garages, small manufacturing workshops, tyre vulcanising, spray painting, pneumatic tools, cycle shops and garages, small machine shops and fabrication workshops, plastic and packaging industry, circuit breaking, thermal power projects, genset starting, PET blowing.

Giving an overview on the company’s positioning in the global market, Jay Varadaraj, Managing Director, Elgi Equipments, said, “The global business for air compressors which includes industrial, construction, mining and the aftermarket is about US$ 15 billion worldwide. India represents around 4-4.5 per cent of the global market. Our presence in India is strong in industrial, construction and mining segments. I would venture to say that in India our share is about 30 per cent.”

Our presence in India is strong in industrial, construction and mining segments. I would venture to say that in India our share is about 30 per cent.

Jay Varadaraj, Managing Director,
Elgi Equipments Ltd