{"id":184,"date":"2018-12-14T14:16:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T14:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.malayaleebazaar.com\/ecostar\/?p=184"},"modified":"2018-12-14T14:16:54","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T14:16:54","slug":"bharat-dynamics-ltd-builds-dynamic-india-on-flourishing-defence-business-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dazzling-chebyshev.103-73-189-254.plesk.page\/?p=184","title":{"rendered":"Bharat Dynamics Ltd Builds Dynamic India on flourishing defence business at home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bharat Dynamics Ltd. (BDL) has built-in itself a world-class capability for manufacturing guided-arms and allied defence equipment beyond just being a contract base for manufacturing ATGM under India\u2019s agreement with French, Russian or any other external organizations. It acquired a high level of technical prowess over the years it’s working with various organizations for manufacturing sophisticated guided weapons, meeting the changing necessities of armed forces and also through understanding their next-generation battlefield challenges. In fact, it has succeeded not only in systematically upgrading its skill-sets as a contract manufacturer of guided arms, but also in R&D driven innovation in defence equipment making. Through discreet pooling of India\u2019s scientific, technological and corporate management strengths BDL stays at the vanguard of ensuring peace, contributing significantly to take India\u2019s defence power to a crescendo.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL) made its capital market debut last year, making itself the world\u2019s first missile maker to list on the bourses for public investments and better enterprise valuation. For Indian stock market the defence business is relatively a new sector, vastly diverse with huge entry barriers. Analysts, who are yet to work out the best earning ratio for defence stocks, are yet to make a dedicated study on the basis of product category and layout a standard-set for evaluating strengths of companies engaged in the sector in general. But they know, the defence sector offers potential and protected commercial opportunities with little competition from others in one\u2019s core area of competence. The existing players like BDL has reached their present enviable position after decades of learning,trial and error procedures and experience of working closely with arms research organizations as well as with foreign state-owned arms makers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The steady growth of BDL as a defence company and the secret of being a competitive player in the sector show its more than four and half decades of success in chasing of its goal to be a competent defence company with skills in its niche areas. The last four years saw its growth trajectory gaining more rapid pace fuelled by newer opportunities, changing policies and discreet management strategies for achieving better competitiveness, Mr Udaya Bhaskar, Chairman and Managing Director  mentions, while pointing at the company\u2019s average compounded annual growth (CAGR) rate of around 40 per cent. Since 2014, the turnover size of the company more than doubled to Rs 4760 crore as at the end of March 2018, though the figure for the previous year was higher at Rs5062 crore. Going by the character of BDL\u2019s business model and delivery nature,minor slippage in turnover on year-on-year (y-o-y) basis couldn\u2019t be any indication of slackness in business or revenue slow-down trend. With an order book position of around Rs 12,000 crore having two-three years turnaround time for execution, analysts find no reason for upset in the company\u2019s revenue for coming years. Mr Udaya Bhaskar also avers fact. Moreover, the Defence Procurement Policy 2016 and the government focus on Make in India, to which BDL has a proactive approach, would brighten its business prospects. \u201cWe are happy with the performance,\u201dhe adds while dwelling on the company\u2019s present order book position. The huge order book position assures a steady stream of revenue, even if the turn around time stretches through different accounting periods. The government anticipates the company to perform at much higher rate nudging the management to put in extra efforts. \u201cWe take it in good spirit and work hard to reach the goal as best as possible,\u201d he adds.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BDL also has started exporting, though the\nmanagement calls it a small size, compared with its present domestic turnover. The\nmanagement expects orders from overseas markets to go up mainly\nbecause of the range of products it has in its portfolio. Indeed, a company of BDL\u2019s stature with\ntechnical competitiveness and proven cost-efficiency, especially when India is\nincreasing being accepted by the world as intellectually superior, there are vast\nopportunities for it in the days ahead, analysts point out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike most of the manufacturing\nsectors with plain vanilla products at their delivery end, the defence sector\nis driven largely by time demanding high value products, which are vulnerable\nto changes even during the course of production and delivery of products, based\non changing threat perspective and the strengths of rivals. Yet, defence\nequipment manufacturers have niche market with long term supply arrangements\nwith the buyers, who are essentially the armed forces. Hitherto, BDL has been\nlargely implementing the projects conceived by Defence Research and Development\nOrganisation (DRDO) without transferring technical know-how. That is only a\ntimely commercial proposition. But with a determination to make it an\nintegrated defence equipment manufacturing conglomerate it began to draw best\navailable talents in various spheres, especially from\nrespectable organizations like DRDO and aerospace industries. As Mr Udaya\nBhaska points out, \u201ctoday, BDL has strong research and development (R&D)\nbase with strong talent pool within, capable of meeting every challenge.\u201d Over\nthe years of its close working with foreign arms makers and R&D driven\ninstitutions like DRDO, besides its own efforts to make it technically sound\nand understanding of the growing needs of armed forces, it could come as a true\ndefence company with excellent R&D and delivery skills, he points out. In a\nway, it has built strong domain knowledge, acquired cutting edge technology\nprowess and achieved high level of operational competitiveness, he points\nout.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was set up 48 years ago\nunder the Ministry of Defence as a domestic facility for manufacturing guided\nmissiles and allied defence equipment.  In the beginning, it was focusing on\nproduction of first generation anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) called French\nSS11B1 on the licence agreement between the Government of India and French\nstate-owned aerospace manufacturer, Aerospatiale. In the next stage, it\nembarked on production of second generation ATGMs of two variants; one named\nFrench MILAN-2 under the production licence and technical collaboration with\nEuromissile of France and second one named Russian Konkurs under similar\narrangement with Tula KBP of the erstwhile Soviet Union. The production of\nthese items for India\u2019s infantry forces and transfer of technology in phased\nmanner helped its engineers gain exposure into system engineering and designing\nconcepts of anti-tank guided missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the missile development\nprocess continued in its efforts to contribute to the power of India\u2019s forces\non the battlefield, its close working with the original equipment manufacturers\n(OEMs) and armed forces enabled it to deliver new classes of ATGMs keeping\nphase with the change of time and new requirements. This is the sector where\nconstant innovation is must to stay as a relevant arms manufacturer, he\nbelieves rightly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When India\u2019s Integrated Guided\nMissile Programme (IGMP) started in the early \u201880s for developing and deploying\nindigenously built sophisticated missiles, BDL began to closely involve in the\nprogramme. It was the prime production agency, opening for it huge\nopportunities to assimilate advanced manufacturing and programme management\ntechnologies and skills.  The company also came up to DRDO\u2019s needs of\nConcurrent Engineering Approach in the programme to meet all challenges\nconcurrently and also to be competent partner in it. Today, it is one of the\nfew companies in the world having capabilities to produce state-of-the-art\nguided weapon systems. BDL has been the lead integrator and producer of India\u2019s\nAkash Weapon System (AWS) developed by DRDO. The system was successfully\ninducted three years ago raising India\u2019s status to the elite club of\nsurface-to-air missiles producing country in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BDL has three manufacturing\nunits, located at Hyderabad, Bhanur and Visakhapatnam. While the Hyderabad unit manufactures SAMs,\nMilan 2T ATGMs, countermeasures, launchers and\ntest equipment, Bhanur unit manufactures Konkurs, INVAR (3 UBK 20), launchers\nand spares. Vishakapatnam unit manufactures of light weight torpedoes, the\nC-303 anti-torpedo system, countermeasures and spares. Two more units are coming up \u2013\none at Ibrahimpatnam, in Telangana and the other at Amravathi in Maharashtra. The Amravathi unit, at 530\nacres, will make Very Short Range Air Defence Missile (VSHORAD). The Ibrahimpatnam Unit, at 630\nacres, will manufacture Surface to Air Missile Defence Project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the\noverall indigenization level at BDL is 70 per cent and the efforts are on to\nfurther improve the level, says Mr Udaya Bhaskar.  Ultimately, BDL\nwill be a world class defence equipment manufacturer with capability to feed in\nIndia\u2019s defence needs according to the rising threat perspective through\ndeploying excellent Indian skills and resources. While being technically\nsuperior at every level, the management pays greater attention on cost competitiveness, as one of\nthe thrust areas. From the vendor level to the final testing stage, BDL renders\nspecial care to stay cost competitive through a strategy of enablement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\nthe aim of giving an impetus to the Make\nin India<\/em> policy and to improve supply chain management to meet long term\ndelivery commitments, BDL had implemented a vendor development policy in 2015.\nThis has brought in transparency in identifying and developing new vendors.\nAlso, as a committed national institution keen to maintain superior operating\nstandard and management system, it looks beyond commercial gains and\ncontributes to the enhancement of vendors\u2019 competitiveness. It\npicks up technically qualified vendors and suppliers to timely delivery. It works\nwith them side-by-side to make them capable of supplying import substitute\nitems that is has identified. This will further enable the company achieve\nhigher level of indigenization, Mr Udaya Bhaskar points out. The company has\narrangement with various domestic and international OEMs for the development of\nits current and future products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indian OEMs andvendors are mostly small and medium enterprises (SMEs). As it understands the fact thatthe vendors also play their roles the company gives special focus on theirskill-upgradation and support at various levels or wherever they require it. \u201cWe hand-hold themand extend our support for achieving common goals of quality andcompetitiveness. Wherever possible we, as a company willing to strengthenrelationship with vendors, offer them our infrastructure so that they can bemore optimistic about executing their tasks. Since every division of BDL, including thematerial testing lab and electronic labs of each division, maintain world classstandard there could be many thing that the technocrat driven SME vendors couldlearn from it for their prosperity in business and future growth as competitivevendor for defence industry. This strategy helps the company stay with controlover vendors and support, to a great extent, benchmarking of productivity andmodernization of management system. After all, most of its products are singleshot devices, calling for superior quality and reliability, it has laid out qualitypolicies to ensure quality at every stage from basic input levels to therealization of the final product. By pooling India\u2019s strength with a wisdom,BDL stays at the vanguard of ensuring peace and contributes to take India\u2019sdefence power to a crescendo.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Nutshell<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n