Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on Wednesday signalled a “short term” disruption in production at its factories/facilities as the coronavirus ( COVID-19 ) pandemic has disrupted the entire supply chain ecosystem and logistics around the globe.
Since the pandemic has caused worldwide lockdown, suppliers in general are financially stressed due to cash flow and liquidity problems, possible production hold up in suppliers’ facilities and restriction on movement of goods through international freights can lead to disruption of established supply chains.
Hence, there could be likely disruption of production in the short term at HAL, said its Chairman and Managing Director R. Madhavan.
Annual report
In the company’s annual report, he said HAL was a highly technology-intensive company with product spectrum including both ToT (transfer of technology) as well as indigenous platforms that contained systems/ sub-systems/ raw materials etc., of foreign origin used on these platforms.
While the pandemic had impacted all major industry sectors, in the aviation and defence sector, it had put severe supply and demand challenges for the commercial aviation business world over, he further said.
HAL produced 31 new aircraft and helicopters, covering Su-30 MKI, LCA Tejas, Dornier Do228, ALH Dhruv, Cheetal helicopter and Chetak helicopter during the fiscal 2019-20. Additionally, the company produced 117 new engines and accessories, he said.
On the future outlook, Mr. Madhavan said the past one decade had seen consistent growth of military and commercial sectors of the aerospace and defence industry, both in the international as well as the domestic market. During this period, HAL had reported an impressive growth with an increase in sales of the order of 62%.
“Looking at the Indian scenario, demand on aerospace and defence manufacturing sector in the country is dominated by the demands from the defence sector. The company business is mainly concentrated on defence services and major negative impact on the demand side of the business due to the pandemic in the long term is not anticipated currently as the defence contracts reflect long term requirements of national interest,” he said.
