With automotive industry being the largest consumer of machine tools and the move towards new BS VI regulations, machine tool manufacturers expect to benefit from the demand for new components. Amanjeet Singh, Founder & Director, Star Machines Tools, discuss about the future of machine tools industry and demand trends.

 

How big is the machine tools industry of India?

 

The Indian machine tool industry currently stands 17th in production and 10th in consumption of machine tools in the world, according to several industry reports. Previously, it was 12th in production and 8th in consumption, in 2017. With an emphasis on 'Make in India' and manufacturing growth, for which the machine tools sector serves as the mother industry, thus, has an enormous potential to become a global exporter. Machine tool industry has huge SME base. SME growth is directly proportional to the growth in manufacturing and overall economic growth.  

 

Can you tell us about some of the emerging trends in the machine tools sector?

 

Each industry aims at higher technology advancements, Alike, the machine tools industry aims to upgrade with respect to the market requirement. 

 

The Industry saw high demand in 2017. This is because of the foreign direct investments (FDIs) by several world class automotive companies. These companies utilised India’s production potential capacity which prompted the rise of demand remarkably. 

 

Post 2017, due to overall industry slowdown, saw a steep downfall. Fall in domestic demand was due to rise in raw material and oil prices. Export market destinations still could have saved India but due to very less companies having state-of-the-art production facilities, manufacturers were unable to keep up with the pace.

 

Today, tooling is more increasingly controlled by technology. Post CNC introduction, another major change will be 3D manufacturing. It will revolutionise tooling across the globe. Today, this technology is costly but it will soon become more affordable, in the years to come. Currently, big machining and tooling companies are exploring 3D manufacturing for better turnout, quality, and faster on-demand production.

 

Automation and Industry 4.0 is a trend today and manufacturing facilities are relying on automation, have you adopted the same? 

 

Yes. We have adopted automation. Our cutting machines were automised in 2015. In 2014, we started looking for energy-efficient machines as our machines consumed lot of power. This is where our advisor suggested installing automated controls. We had 80 people operating different machines in a single shift. Today 38 people work at our manufacturing facility in two shifts to ensure all work is done. With automation all our idle machines are turned off, saving more power. Certain machines at the facilityt are set with parameters of auto on/off. On an average, we are save our 30 per cent cost since 2015. 

 

Are you looking ahead for some policy changes from the government that will benefit companies like you?

 

As of now we are happy with government policies but finance has to be routed well. Today, small industries are unable to achieve such economies of scale due to lack of finance. There are some really good players, who are quality conscious and are willing to adopt new technology but are failing to do so due to finance. Government schemes route loans and finance through banks who are unwilling to lend us loans due to our small scale of operations and total asset cost. If government changes the route, I think small players will start producing volumes with quality.

 

Today which industry shows high demand for machine tools? 

 

Automotive industry is the prime beneficiary of the machine tools. The consumption of machine tools by this industry determines the strength of the sector. Almost all the basic machining operations are laboured by this industry. Also, it highly impacts the machine tools export to various key players in the global market. 

 

Due to automotive exports to nations like Africa, Bangladesh and SriLanka, machines from India are in demand, while many also depend on tools.