Some more on Conical Bit

Since last two posts have been revolving around conical bit (cutter pick), I thought to continue Sandeep’s flow and add some more on the cutter picks. The presentation will give glimpse of various forms, sizes and types of conical bits that me manufacture and export.

Team Spirit

I was visiting some exhibition on construction and mining in Bangalore a few years back and came across a German Company Wirtgen. I knew and had heard about Wirtgen but never knew they had a sales and service setup in India by the name of  Wirtgen India Pvt Ltd. Wirtgen GmbH, a world leader in manufacturing Road Construction and Mining Equipment, manufactures a wide range of Cold Milling Machines, Cold Recyclers, Soil Stabilizers, Hot Recyclers, Surface Miners, Slipform Concrete Pavers and Mobile Cold Recycling Mixing Plant. They are a big buyer of Conical Bits and were sourcing there requirements mostly from their parent company in Germany. I had the opportunity to meet one of there senior guys, Pankaj Kumar. Pankaj a north India was speaking fluent Bengali which surprised me. Fortunately being born and brought up in West Bengal and having done my schooling at Ramakrishna Mission I also speak, write and read Bengali. So we struck a good rapport. We kept discussing their requirements for Conical Bits. Pankaj invited me to there sales and service warehouse in Bangalore. I reached there facility on the scheduled time and date. It was a very pleasant welcome and the major agenda was supply of Brazed Conical Bit for wirtgen machines in India. Wirtgen that point of time had almost 50 machines working in India. After our meeting we went for lunch in there canteen and were joined by the core team including the Manging Director. There were people from all across the country including Kashmir and also a sardarji. What was surprising there to me was all of these guys were speaking fluent Bengali and that too in the state of Karnataka. Later on I came to know this whole group has been working together for last many years in a different company and then joined here in mass with the managing Director and there MD happened to be a Bengali guy and rest of the team picked up the language for the leader. What a team spirit!

ERP at LNM

ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP)

Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) integrate all data and processes of an organization into a unified system.  A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a unified database to store data for the various system modules

The introduction of an ERP system to replace two or more independent applications eliminates the need for external interfaces previously required between systems, and provides additional benefits that range from standardization and lower maintenance (one system instead of two or more) to easier and/or greater reporting capabilities (as all data is typically kept in one database).

Examples of modules in an ERP which formerly would have been stand-alone applications include: Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Financials, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Resources, Warehouse Management and Decision Support System.

Ideally, ERP delivers a single database that contains all data for the software modules, which would include:

Manufacturing 

Engineering, Bills of Material, Scheduling, Capacity, Workflow Management, Quality Control, Cost Management, Manufacturing Process, Manufacturing Projects, Manufacturing Flow

Supply Chain Management  

Inventory, Order Entry, Purchasing, Product Configuration, Supply Chain Planning, Supplier Scheduling, Inspection of goods, Claim Processing, Commission Calculation

Financials  

General Ledger, Cash Management, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Fixed Assets

Projects 

Costing, Billing, Time and Expense, Activity Management

Human Resources  

Human Resources, Payroll, Training, Time & Attendance, Benefits

Customer Relationship Management  

Sales and Marketing, Commissions, Service, Customer Contact and Call Center support

Data Warehouse  

Various Self-Service interfaces for Customers, Suppliers, and Employees

 

LNM uses ERP to manage all the activities like engineering, production, material handling,  inventory management etc.

Conical Bit

Conical Bit or Cutter Pick

Conical Bit :

A miner bit has a base portion formed of two different metallic members welded together, one being adapted to be mounted to a continuous mining machine and the other having a frustoconical end portion welded to a frustoconical tungsten carbide bit.

Its called differently by different people and companies. Some call it Bits, Pick, Cutter pick etc.

The body of this conical bit is made of steel casting or forging having a conical nose end position provided with an axial hole in the front in which a tungsten carbide insert is mounted. The tungsten carbide insert extends from the front end of the nose portion of the metal body and provides the cutting surface of the bit. These conicals are mounted on Blocks which are also called Pick Box, Bit holder etc.. In use a large number of such bits are mounted for free axial rotation in the outer surface of a rotary drum, or in the outer surface of a continuous chain or the like, and the bits are moved through an orbit which is intercepted by the face of the material being mined .

The conical Bit also has a groove in the bottom side in which a retainer is attached for the conical to remain fitted into the bit block.

LNM has been making these conical bits for last 8 years having a capacity to make almost 1.5 million of them a year. Usually we make them out of different alloy steel hot or cold forged and then machined and heat treated.