The United Arab Emirates does many things well, having already diversified its economy beyond oil and gas.
However, it is unlikely that many people would point to the vehicle industry as a key growth segment — which is an understandable sentiment given the global dominance of established vehicle and equipment brands from developed markets where engineering expertise and capacities are concentrated.
At this present hour, the Middle East is a little way from being a region that the world yet looks to for its vehicle engineering queues.
An yet this precisely is what makes the steady growth and development of the International Armoured Group (IAG) operations in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) over the last decade all the more refreshing, and explains why the launch of the group’s latest 3.5ha facility in the RAK free trade zone is being celebrated by both the company and the emirate alike.
Indeed, the very fact that the founder, president and CEO of IAG, Dr Anton Stefov, has seen it fit to live and work in RAK himself indicates the importance of the emirate among the group’s global operations.
Manufacturing everything from armoured passenger transport buses for use on oil and gas sites in Iraq and other locales to armoured pickups and indeed fully-fledged armoured personnel carriers, the recently launched facility has raised IAG’s production capacity by 40%, to 150 vehicles a month.
Dr Stefov notes: “We see great demand for superior quality and high performance armoured vehicles both regionally and globally. In order to meet these increasing demands, we decided to strategically shift into bigger and more efficient manufacturing facility.”
Comprising both an indoor assembly area and a covered outdoor storage area with space for 600 vehicles, the development has allowed IAG to consolidate a number of previously geographically remote operations within the RAK free trade zone under a single roof and organisational structure.
Dr Stefov continues: “This facility is providing us with the capacity to improve production and quality, because everything we need is under the same roof and under our control. Previously we had five locations all over the free zone, and it was more difficult to coordinate and control the design quality; now it is better organised and more effective.”
Separate from the consolidated assembly plant, IAG also has a ballistic steel engineering department with including CNC laser-cutting and bending machines, all of it quite literally cutting-edge, including as a case-in-point a five-axis milling machine that was developed less than a year ago.
IAG does not in actual fact produce its vehicles from scratch — it uses existing and well-supported vehicle platforms. However, it so heavily re-engineers its armoured vehicles, from the chassis up, that it is no misnomer to say that it is ‘producing the vehicles’ — the platforms are just parts it needs to get there.
A significant number of IAG vehicles are based on various Toyota Land Cruiser series, and Dr Stefov notes: “Originally, the chassis of a Toyota Land Cruiser is designed to support a weight of 2.4t; our vehicles support up to 6t — so you can imagine from 2.4t to 6t what kind of modifications you need in order to have a vehicle with a good operating dynamic that is going to perform well in the field.”
Toyota and Ford platforms are successful due to the strength of their service networks — allowing IAG to distribute its finished products widely, and have them serviced through ordinary dealer and aftersales channels. This is in stark contrast to more customised fare.
Dr Stefov explains: “There are different types of approach. If you are talking about pure military vehicles, in most cases you build the box, then mount engines, transmission, transfer case and the rest of the parts and at the end you have one vehicle.
“Our strategy is different: our vehicles are not pure military. We take a well-known platform that is well supported in the world, and then we modify them into armoured vehicles — which is fast and cost-effective and gives us an advantage in terms of the servicing.
“Once we send them out and the end users receive them, they can go to the dealer and have the vehicle serviced there in their own country. We have vehicles selling into the Middle East, Asia and Africa — so many places that if we didn’t have the dealers’ support it would be almost impossible for us to service all these different types of vehicle.
To date, there are currently more than 200 Jaws APCs in circulation and there have been no major problems reported by IAG’s clients.
IAG’s Toyota-based light vehicles are particularly successful in Africa, where the Toyota platform is already popular, but it varies heavily by region and continent.
In Asia by contrast, Isuzu is a popular truck platform that is also widely supported across Africa, while in North America Ford is an overwhelmingly popular truck choice.
The heavily-armoured Guardian, on the other hand, is based on a Ford F550, and channels the strength of the popular Ford platform into a swift and effective vehicle.
“This vehicle has a few advantages,” explains Dr Stefov. “First it has a very powerful engine: the weight to power ratio is close to 50 horsepower per tonne (hp/t). In a typical fighting military vehicle, this ratio is 25hp/t to 35hp/t — so we are way above this number. This vehicle can be used to transport groups of people, especially police units and SWAT teams from place to place.”
And while the Guardian platform was designed four to five years ago, Dr Stefov adds: “We keep developing, modifying and improving the vehicle. It doesn’t matter how good the vehicle design is: nothing is forever. We have to keep applying new technology to fit the environment and requirements.”
The work required in any vehicle retrofit also depends heavily on the requirement of the customer. A vehicle required for off-road has entirely different suspension requirements compared with a vehicle for urban areas.
Dr Stefov notes: “Any F550 which we fit off-road work requires a change of the front axle, because the standard F550 is a vehicle for city roads and very rarely for off-road.
“We have to completely redesign and replace the front axle, because the original axle can only carry a 3t payload and we need at least 4.5t to 6t depending on the armouring — and this axle is also not available from Ford.
“We manufacture the axle ourselves, which is our huge advantage over other companies, who just add reinforcement on the bottom, but who don’t change the differential ratio —which brings more power and torque.”
Torque is a particularly important variable in the Middle East and Africa, where it helps maintain power on the softer substrates and desert sands common across the region.
Dr Stefov adds: “When I told my friends that were doing axles, they laughed and said; ‘axles are done by billion dollar companies — how can you do them?’ They though I was joking, but now we have an axle that can be modified for different vehicles with very little effort.”
Commenting on IAG’s location, Dr Anton Stefov is blunt: “Ras Al Khaimah is quite far from the middle of the country, but it is very good for business and we have the support of HH Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, the ruler.
“Moreover, the desert is next to us, which is very important for the testing of our vehicles: no matter how good the vehicle or the design is, there will be problems — and we discover any issues by testing the vehicles for 500km to 1,000km in the desert. When you are in a free zone in the big cities this is not possible.”
For the UAE, IAG lends credence to the notion that ‘anything is possible’ — including the rise of regional vehicle manufacturing.
