Honeywell expects to grow rapidly in India, Mr. Pritam Bhavnani, President , Honeywell Aerospace India in an exclusive interview to Aeromag Asia. The company is setting up a research and development centre in Gurgaon to address its European business. Honeywell currently has around 12,000 employees in India. A significant amount of R&D and engineering works, as well as development of aero plane products are done in Bangalore. Fight control system, avionics and engine modifications are some of the key areas of development. It is not like back office work; real work is done in Bangalore. Excerpts from the interview.

How important is the Indian market for Honeywell?

It is very important from multiple points of view. One, obviously, is people’s talent, skill and capability. It is the very important part. If you look at the number of employees Honeywell has, India is the number two in terms of the headcount after the US.

The second is obviously the market, the volume of business that we can have in India. Honeywell’s revenue in India is around USD 500 million of the total revenue of USD 33 billion – USD 34 billion. So, half of the billion is coming from India. Not that big now, but we are expecting to grow very rapidly in the future.

And also we do a lot of exports out of India – turbochargers for example. In Pune, we made turbochargers for companies like Tata and Mahindra. And also we export them to Thailand, Europe, and other places. Two years ago, we made 400,000 and 800,000 last year, and this we will go up to 1.5 million turbochargers in Pune. So the volume has doubled two years in a row and most of this being exported to Thailand and Europe also. It is all coming out of Pune.

What are the new initiatives coming?

I told you that, in case of turbochargers, we are growing tremendously. In design and development engineering, we are growing tremendously. We are also adding a new research and development centre in Gurgaon for our European business, which is the petrochemical business where we will be going, what Honeywell does in Europe.

We actually design the process and the catalyst that are needed to convert raw of feed stocks whether it is crude oil and L.G oil to convert to diesel, kerosene, petrol, jet fuel etc. That conversion process is what Honeywell’s knowledge is and we are experts at that.

So we have done one big centre in US and we will be setting up one in Gurgaon this year. Crude oil in Saudi Arabia is different from the crude oil in Bombay High and in the US and or in Russia. Each crude oil has different properties.

What are the new trends you are seeing in Indian Defence market?

I think Indian Defence market is going to through certain changes. One of the elements is modernising of the aircraft. If you look at the aircraft previously, the transport aircraft of Russian origin designed from 70s and 80s that we purchased. Now the new transport aircraft which has been purchased C-130, C-70 and they will start taking over the main responsibility because they are more fuel efficient, take off and land in a shorter runway. They don’t need any finished runway or concrete runway. So there is the advantage to those aircraft, they will get more use and there are a lot of Honeywell components on them. We are working with the airports to establish the maintenance requirements, maintenance facility for Honeywell products.

In Hyderabad, we have done another R&D centre actually. R&D is a service centre, one of the key things we provide from Hyderabad is also, what we call, Flight support Services. Flight Support services is for example for the business aircraft. For these aircraft when they are planning a flight, let’s say it is going to fly from Mumbai to Dubai-so we will from this Hyderabad centre, will get the information on this date, on this time we want to leave and this time we will arrive. So they will then plan out around it, give them all the view points, identify them, get all the weather picture, getting all the clearance while the aircraft is in the air, to follow them to make sure whether there is any problem or not.

If there is any problem, they will send to alternate airport, to book even hotel to help them. By the time they land, hotel will already be there and cars also will be ready to pick them from the airport, because for these people time is so precious. One of the main things is supporting the flights of business aircraft and that support is done from Hyderabad for flights all over the world, not just in India but all over the world.

Business aircraft in the US are also using Hyderabad centre for this for example. If you go on air with a good control from all these big TVs, tracking all flights in US and Europe, Asia, India and the different parts of the world, they have all control over all these people, each one is monitoring, helping, planning for future flights of getting clearances and working with the Airports for landing time and arrangements

What are you doing on modernization of Indian Airports?

I will give an idea about what we had done in Hyderabad and Delhi Airport on the new terminals. For example: Delhi Airport T3. All the security systems -- that means from video camera to the control room to the badge readers, whether someone has to put badge to open the door or close the door before you enter the airport -- all those badge readers, all those control system for the full security, the preliminary security of airport were done by Honeywell.

All the air conditioning control system, all the lighting control systems, and the runway lights are done by Honeywell. So a lot of equipment into these large buildings and structures to manage electricity, energy, and all those things are done by Honeywell. So Hyderabad airport is the same thing, Delhi airport is the same thing, all the new airport coming up, we are working on Chennai with AAI and will work like this in future.

What are the short term, medium term and long term plans?

Short term, obviously continue what we are doing now, grow and expand. Medium term would be to do more research, more development but also not only for products made and operated in western world but also new products for India specifically. Now we are starting to look at what is needed in India that we can design in India and make it in India for the Indian Market. This is a kind of medium term. Then long term is also when to take development from both areas -- western development and Indian development -- and apply it different places. We call it “Upon East for East and East for West”. East for east means India for Indian market and east for west means the things we develop for western market.

What’s the update on the human resources front?

I think it depends upon the business growth. It is hard to put numbers on that. In 2002 or 2003, we had 1000 employees in India, but today we have 12,000 employees in India. That means the growth rate is quiet good, so based on the business growth, something like this will continue. I think there is no resistance on the part of Honeywell to grow on.

What are the takeaways from Paris Air show?

Two big very clear announcements we made, one was on the green fuel. This fuel was used first to fly from the US to Europe. It was on Honeywell’s business jet and it was used to 50-50 random of normal oil based jet fuel verses the green fuel. We have the process to convert this into eco-friendly jet fuel. There are several advantages of the fuel that we developed.

All aero planes which use this fuel will have less carbon emission so they have to pay less carbon tax. They can save money this way. And the other thing in regard to this fuel is that, it is being tested and certified by ASTM (American Society of Testing Material). Once it is certified, then all the refineries can start producing it, so the oil companies can start delivering it to airfield use by the airport.

This fuel has been tested on about 10 or 12 different types of aircraft in different engines in different parts of the world like the US, Korea, Japan, and Asia. It has been tested on Boeing aircraft, Air force Aircraft, GE engine, Helicopters, Fighter aircraft of the military. All types of engines, aircraft, and requirements are tested for the last 20 years. After all these thorough testing, it is certified and now it is ready for the actual use. It is important from efficiency perspective, environmental perspective.

Any joint venture?

One we announced with SAFRAN for electric taxi system, which basically would take the electric power from observing power unit and use it to drive the wheels of the airplane so that there is no need to turn on the main engine. In India, we don’t have any joint venture.