Bangalore, 23rd January 2013 - Starrag India Pvt Ltd, a whole-time subsidiary of Starrag Group Holding AG, a Swiss Public Limited Company, has announced the launch of new range of high performance WMW IWK Horizontal Machining Centers (HMC) on 24th January at the International Machine tool Show "Imtex 2013" at Bangalore. Starrag India also announced the inauguration of their new factory to produce machining centres at Bangalore on 25th Jan 2013.

Announcing the launch, Dr Frank Brinken, President & Chief Executive Officer of Swiss Headquartered "Starrag Group", said "WMW is one of our 10 heritage brands globally renowned for long-term accuracy, long-term performance and long-term reliability. The other well known brands are SIP, Dorries, Heckert, Starrag, Drop + Rein, Bumotec, Bertheiz and Scharmann. India has several installations of SIP jig boring of many generation technologies and their durability and long term accuracy is the hallmark of our ten brands."

The new range of high performance machining centres for developing markets offer very productive solutions for machining ferrous parts for trucks, tractors, earthmovers and construction equipment, windmills, compressors, textile machinery, machine tools, power generation diesel engines, oil and natural gas, gearboxes, aerospace, valves, hydraulics, turbine blade root and general engineering."

These 4-axis machining centres have many unique features for high performance milling of ferrous and hard metal using time tested Heckert High Torque Gearbox spindle technology, using heavy duty tooling for a high productivity".

The company also announced the inauguration of a greenfield factory at Bangalore on 25th January 2013, by its Chairman, Mr Walter Fust, to build these WMW machining centres in India.

Speaking about this venture, Mr A N Chandramouli, Managing Director, Starrag India said "The Greenfield manufacturing facility with a 12 Mn Swiss Francs or Rs 60 crore investment has come up in Bengaluru at KIADB Aerospace Park; Devanahalli. It was approved by Karnataka Udyog Mitra during the Global Investor Meet in June 2010.

Indeed, Starrag India is the first factory to launch in this new industrial park. The factory will rollout 4 popular size models of WMW Horizontal Machining Centres from July 2013 to Dec 2014. A cost reduction program through local supply chain is in advanced stage and there will be a national road show of the localized product by July 2013. The two phased manufacturing program (60~120 units per year) will mainly be absorbed by Indian market which is now on its economic revival after a slow down in 2012. Employment of 300 highly skilled technicians will be generated over time directly by this investment. In the new factory, an apprentice training centre has been commissioned using Swiss Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs already tailor-made in collaboration with SWISS-MEM."

"The new factory will now give the Indian customers advantages of currency protection, locally adapted features, faster delivery, quick response to customer support, integrated turnkey solutions and above all competitive prices; Already Since Oct 2010, in order to support the machines imported from Germany, the company had set up at Peenya, Bangalore, a state-of-the-art Technology Centre which is now relocated and integrated within the new manufacturing plant. The purpose of this tech-centre is to support Indian customers in Application and Turnkey solutions. Here turnkey projects are undertaken involving proposal engineering, application engineering, fixture and tool engineering, application and fixture manufacturing for various customers in aerospace, transport/automobile, power generation equipment, agriculture equipment and construction equipment manufacturers," said Chandramouli.

Gunther Eller, Global VP of customer service adds: "The new plant in Devanahalli will also house the customer service centre for the region, supporting all brands of the group. Spare parts stocks and high level training programs for our local service engineers will ensure that our global leading standards for customer service are maintained in India".