Paresh Maru, Partner, Premier Lathe Manufacturing Company, talks about the company’s products and services.

Premier Lathe Manufacturing Company has a long history as a manufacturer of lathes. What is the present manufacturing range?

Since inception in 1971, Premier it has continued to grow and innovate to provide the best quality of lathe machines. Premier Lathe Manufacturing Company manufactures a very wide range of machines from small lathe to the biggest lathes in use, i.e., ranging in length from 4.5’ ft to 50’ ft. This range comprises of lathe machines with different models like medium duty, heavy duty, extra heavy duty, hi-cut and roll turning machine.

What are the applications and which industry segments are you aiming it at?

A lathe machine is the basic mother machine for any kind of manufacturing industry. The machine is a must, an essential requisite for tool rooms and is used in the bulk production of auto components, as well as components for pumps, valves, rolling mills, turbines, etc.

Do you have any CNC product? Or any kind of automation?

We do not have any CNC product. What we manufacture are high precision cone pulley lathe machines. But we do customised special purpose machines (SPMs) in lathes as per customers’ requirements.

What are the current trends in machine tools in terms of cost vs features? Especially given the fact that many features are actually rarely used but drive up the cost?

Current trends and demand in machine tools industry is for superior quality at affordable price. Nowadays a buyer needs the best quality, with hi-tech features and aesthetic looks as compared to imported machine.

Who are your major customers and what are their preferences like?

Our major customers are large corporates like Siemens Ltd, L&T, Hindustan Turbo Ltd, Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd, Jindal Aluminium Ltd and many more. Their preferences are precision machinesa and superior workmanship with long lasting life.

What industry sectors are you catering to?

We do cater to various sectors like ancillaries in the automobile segment, and component manufacturing in pumps, valves, sugar mills, rolling mills and turbine industries.

How strong or effective is the after sales service?

We have strong and effective after sales service. Also mainly we focus on quality during the assembly stage of lathe machines, so there is hardly any requirement for any significant after sales service until and unless there is some major problem.

How does the cost of ownership over the life cycle compare with competition?

There is a lot of competition In the market and our machines are competitively priced. But thanks to our emphasis on quality and commitment towards offering machines that conform to international standards, our products are popular among customers and that ensures repeat orders.

What are the company’s achieve-ments?

Since our inception we manufacture small lathes, but with years of experience and gauging the demand in the market, we have developed heavy-duty lathe machines. Further, in the year 2006 we developed a roll turning lathe machine for rolling mills, sugar mills and the turbine industry.

How is the present business environment?

Present business is 15-20 % slack as compared to previous years. Due to downfall in export market and fluctuation in raw material prices, there is no demand as per our expectation. But the machine tools industry is the backbone of the manufacturing activity and hence the future is very bright, so we are optimistic on that score.

What are the future plans?

Though we have our marketing activity and sales and service network in most of the states in India, we are constantly trying to enter new geographies. Another important area is import substitution. There are currently gaps in terms of non availability of some indigenous products where these are imported so we plan to bridge this gap by manufacturing quality substitutes for such imported machines, so we can cater to our customers’ requirements of superior quality machines at affordable prices.