Indian machine tools industry needs to embrace Industry 4.0: Rajesh Khanna

Wendt India draws its technological superiority from Wendt GmbH, which is a part of 3M, and sound and ethical management practices from Murugappa Group. While Wendt GmbH is the pioneer in super abrasive tooling solutions and high precision grinding machines for insert grinding and steel industries for over 8 decades, the 100 year Murugappa Group is the market leader in diverse businesses such as engineering, abrasives, finance, general insurance, cycles, sugar, farm inputs, fertilisers, plantations, bio-products and nutraceuticals. Rajesh Khanna, CEO, Wendt (India) Ltd provides his take on the current status and his anticipation for the machine tools industry in future.

Kindly let us know about your company?

Wendt (India) Limited (WIL), a leading manufacturer of super-abrasive grinding wheels/tools (diamond and cubic boron nitride), special purpose grinding machines, honing machines and tools. Offers functionally superior products and services for grinding and machining ‘hard–to–process materials’.

Wendt India is a 40:40 joint venture company between Wendt GmbH (part of 3M) and Carborundum Universal Limited (CUMI) of Murugappa Group and the balance 20% being held by public. Wendt India has successfully completed 35 years of its operations, serving the customers globally with the most comprehensive range of super abrasive products, range of grinding and honing machines and precision components. While in the domestic market it has been maintaining its leading position, in exports front, it has established its presence in more than 35 countries.

Which segments of machine tools do you belong to?

Wendt India offers high precision and high performance specialised CNC rotary surface grinding machines, CNC cylindrical grinding machines, wheel profiling and dressing machines, honing machines, guide roll/TC rings grinding machine, notch tool grinder, notch milling machine, special purpose grinding machines, fine grinding machine, and single pass honing machine.

Who are the leading users (customers) of your products and services?

We practically cater to all major industry segments such as automotive, steel, cutting tools, engineering, glass, ceramics, refractory, bearing, textile, defence and aerospace, construction and infrastructure to name a few.

What are the benefits offered by your products and services to your customers?

We provide customised and functionally superior products to meet the application requirements of the customer in grinding and honing areas by closely working with the customer. We reach our customers directly with no intermediaries.

These machines are supplied along with special accessories, dressing systems, coolant systems and are completely tooled-up to take either of conventional or super abrasive tools - diamond and cubic boron nitride (CBN) - as per customer requirement. Being the ‘complete grinding & honing solution provider’ from machines to tools, helps us in maintaining our competitive edge.

Machine tools industry has been catering largely to automotive and auto component industry. Which are the other industries machine tools might have scope in?

Auto and auto component industry and capital goods industry form the major market for machine tools in India. The auto and auto component industry constituting to a major chunk of the machine tools market, growing at a healthy rate and the trend is expected to continue, for some more time. Thanks to the government focus on construction, infrastructure and low cost housing, our machines also find their usage in engineering, steel, glass, ceramics, refractory segments and the requirement of machines to these segment is also showing decent growth trend.

The government focus on railway, aerospace and defence industry and the ‘Make in India’ initiative is expected to fuel the demand further, specially to these sectors. These are going to be the other focus industries for the machine tools fraternity.

With the opening of defense manufacturing sector, do you see a rise in prospects for machine tools industry?

In last few years, foreign defence manufacturers have been allowed investments to help Indian companies set up manufacturing facilities. They may also be able invest in a SEBI-regulated fund that will promote start-ups to meet their offset obligations, that run-in billions of dollars.

Changes being proposed by the Defence Ministry in its offset policy, mandates foreign companies to invest at least 30% of any military contract they win. This is expected to significantly change how companies such as Boeing, Airbus and Dassault will spend an estimated $ 14 billion in India in next 5 to 10 years.

All the above would have a positive impact on prospects of machine tool industry not only on capacity but capability enhancement. As these industries require high end sophisticated and precision machines, it would also have a demand on the machine tool industry to graduate to next level.  

How would you describe the present machine tools (metal cutting and/or metal forming machines) market in India?

India is all set to become a key player in the global machine tools industry and is likely to see substantial high-end machine tool manufacturing coming under its fold.

The reason being, the manufacturing activity is slowly shifting from developed countries to the third world countries and accordingly the resultant market of the machines also shifting from the developed countries to low cost manufacturing countries. This would force the big machine manufacturers to shift base to where the market exist and it would become imperative for them put base to compete in low-cost high skill geographies like India.

The industry’s prospect mainly depends on the growth of the manufacturing sector. The bulk users of machine tools are automotive, auto ancillaries, railways, defence, steel, fertilisers, electricals, electronics, telecommunication, textile, ball and roller bearings, industrial valves, power-driven pumps, multiproduct engineering companies, earth moving machinery, compressors and the likes. 

What are the emerging trends in machine tools industry?

In recent past, Industry 4.0 has evolved rapidly from a distant, esoteric concept to something companies now believe is real and tangible. Industry 4.0 is a collective term for the new technologies that are significantly changing the manufacturing landscape.

These technologies include 3D printing, sensors, advanced robotics, Internet of Thing (IoT), simulation, augmented reality, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data and Advanced Analytics. The Indian machine tool industry needs to embrace and work around these emerging trends.

Is Indian machine tools industry ready for adoption of new technologies (such as automation, robotics, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, Industry 4.0, etc)?

While, for some the above new technology may be in its infancy stage, there is no doubt that the industry needs to adopt it sooner than later as these technologies would substantially reduce cost, improved productivity, quality, flexibility.

The level of maturity across technologies as well evolution stage varies, and hence their applicability across industries in India would be different.

The major challenges include availability and access to the right talent, a strong supplier and technology provider ecosystem, infrastructure to re-skill and up-skill the present workforce, ability to adapt business processes and systems to embed the technology and change management in the organisation.

For small and medium sized enterprises, even getting access to these technologies, understanding them and identify business prospects remains a challenge.

Are there any new launches in the pipeline for India? If yes, please elaborate

Being a total grinding honing solution provider, innovation is a continual practice for both product and process at Wendt India, in the areas of grinding and honing. Almost all of our products are customised to fulfill the customer’s changing requirements.

We have in the recent past, introduced some of the high-end machines such as creep feed grinding machine, cylindrical grinding machines, angular head grinding machine, twin spindle honing machine with robotisation and CNC wheel dressing and profile grinding machine incorporating innovative features. We are certainly looking forward to first consolidate and work on last launches and then look at high-end customised machines in precision grinding during the year.

What are your future growth plans?

Wendt India’s machines tool business, continues to work on enhancing customisation, introduce additional features and automation. The new machines are being developed with technical assistance from partners in Europe. Simultaneously, we would continue identifying opportunities and offer machines to our customer, so that they do not have to depend on global sourcing.

SBU has significant presence in Automotive industry for super abrasive tooling business and hence building machines for this industry is a natural choice for addressing the government’s ‘Make in India’ drive.