“We are manufacturers, we don’t trade. So we don’t import, label and sell. We have the capability of manufacturing,” says Satish Bhat, Managing Director, Ador Welding Ltd……………………………………………………………………………………
Ador Welding is continuously putting up more efforts towards success in welding industry for the world to grow more smartly. Recently the company had participated in ‘India Essen Welding & Cutting 2014’ – an exhibition held in Mumbai at Bombay Exhibition Centre. In an interaction with OEM Update, Mr Bhat shared about the performance of Ador Welding and major challenges being faced by manufacturers in India etc.
How did Ador Welding perform over the past two years? If we analyse the welding industry for last two financial years i.e. 2012-2013, 2013-2014,during 2012-2013 there was a degrowth of 11 per cent over 2011-12 and over that there was a degrowth of 17 per cent in the last financial year i.e.2013-14. However, Ador Welding grew by 4 and 2 per cent respectively in these two years in spite of having degrowth of such a high magnitude in the industry.
Brief us on the new range of products recently introduced by Ador.We are into total welding solution providing space. It means that we have ability to design a process, ability to manufacture the consumables, equipment for the same process, automation and skill development for it. However, in the last couple of months we have introduced few consumables which are basically used for higher performance requirement which are used into super critical and critical boilers. These will be used for nuclear energy application. We have also introduced CNC cutting machines in basically big, small and customised machine. We have even launched inverter based SAW process machine. We have ability to manufacture 1,200 Amp SAW machines in the country. And most importantly we are manufacturers, we don’t trade. So we don’t import, label and sell. We have the capability of manufacturing and we manufacture.
What is your opinion on the penetration of high-end welding technology in the Indian market?For the last couple of years there was no capital investment because there was no business. However, because of the ‘Make in India’ motto launched by PM Narendra Modi, there will be lots of thrust for manufacturing in India. Indian manufacturing companies will have to adopt or invent new technologies. In the next couple of years, there will be scope for new technologies for better productivity or automation for similar kind of metals or dissimilar metal joining. It will lead to higher expenditure on R&D. We will also see tie-ups by the manufactures for new technology. What are the major challenges being faced by the local manufacturers in India?Challenges right now are on the raw material side. India is not able to manufacture pure raw material. Welding is a very technical subject. If there are impurities in the base raw metal, the desired results are not obtained. So if good quality of weld is required, we need to have fewer impurities in the welding products. This is not controlled by the welding product manufacturer but the raw material suppliers. Especially when it comes to steel rods, we are not able to manufacture higher, purer grade of steel. Hence we need to import the steel. It makes domestic manufacturer non-competitive against MNC in terms of cost and delivery.
Other issue is taxation structure. However, GST looks promising for one tax structure. The most important and critical issue is availability of skilled manpower. Skills are required for manufacturing of welding products and also for their use and thus there is a huge demand – supply gap.
In such a scenario what are some of the initiatives taken by Ador to remain competitive?For the past one year or so we have started reaching out the steel manufacturers and started working together to produce pure grade of steel, thus we expect such material to be available in the market. That is our main initiative. We have Ador welding academy dealing with the skill development. We have tied up with IITS, engineering colleges. Through this we have started training the people to make them available for the welding market.
Aren’t you trying to improve your service portfolio?For us service is the main focus. Welding machines segment is our one of the main business to increase upkeep time of our machines. We train customers’ employees so that small service issues are done by them and the major service issues are referred to us.
