Chetan Purav, Director, CP Grat-Ex Mfg Co, elaborates on the range of products and a breakthrough achieved by the company.

What are the various types of deburring tools available with the company?

Deburring tools offered by us can be classified into two broad categories:

* Edge deburring using hand held tools, and
* Cross hole deburring tools for CNC application.

Edge deburring tools are designed to cover deburring of:

* Straight & curved edges
* One or two sides of slots, key-ways, ribs, ridge, sheets, etc
* Corner and surface scraping Single or both sides of hole, and
* Outside diameter of shaft, tubes, etc.

The tools are designed for deburring of various components in different materials including ferrous, non-ferrous and plastics.

Cross hole deburring tools perform the most challenging tasks of intersecting hole deburring with ease. The tools can be programmed as in-process tools on CNC machines for consistent results. Even the burr in 2 mm intersecting hole can be addressed with these tools.

Why is deburring by and large a manual operation? Is there a power tool option?

There are many deburring processes such as manual deburring, power brushing, bonded-abrasive finishing, mass finishing, abrasive blasting, abrasive flow deburring, thermal and electro-chemical deburring, and robotic deburring.

Manual deburring is the most common deburring process since it is fast, efficient and economical solution for burr removal. Other deburring methods require specialised equipment and are relatively much costly.

Power tool option: Countersink tools for hole and external deburrer for shafts/tubes are particularly used with power tools.

For intersecting hole deburring – Orbitool is used in hand held driver or can be used as in-process tool after drilling on CNC machines.

What is the USP of CP-GRAT-EX deburring tools?

Our unique selling propositions are:

* Innovative designs
* Better value equation – reflection of design and manufacturing process
* Consistent quality
* Packaging modularity and flexibility, and
* Availability of the shelf.

From the beginning CP Grat-Ex has stood for innovation and always asked the question how we can do it differently. This has reflected in every product that CP Grat-Ex offers.

Are these tools manufactured indigenously? Any imported component?

All the manual deburring tools are designed, manufactured and exported from India. Certain raw material content is sourced from Europe.

How effective are these in operation, and how price competitive?

CP Grat-Ex deburring tools offer unprecedented value owing to its right pricing and well tested blade life. No other deburring tool gives this value and comes even close.

Add to this international packaging and modularity that gives total flexibility to users in mix and match of blades and handles to suit their unique needs.

Any breakthrough product launch that made a difference?

CP Grat-Ex developed multi cutting edge deburring tools, which can be called break-through design in the history of deburring. We realised that deburring blades as they were being made did not make use of the entire cutting edge length and hence came with a novel concept of multi cutting edge.

Unique features of multi cutting edge deburring tools include:

* Multiple segments of cutting edges separated with guides
* Optimum use of entire cutting edge length
* Fit on all handles and holders in the market
* Advance design – precision engineered, and
* Longer life, greater value.

So effective were these features that many in the international circles wondered how come nobody thought of this before. We not only thought about it but also validated and tested the multi cutting edge design, which made use of the entire cutting edge for deburring thus increasing life of the blade multi-folds. Today multi cutting blades have opened a lot of doors for CP Grat-Ex’s products with well-established international distributors.

How effective is the distribution network? What about exports?

We cover all the major industrial centres in India through a network of over 60 strong industrial distributors, who maintain stock and ensure quick customer service. All our distributors are well trained to offer the right guidance and help solve the deburring problems of the industrial user.

The export market is very large. So far our products are available in 15 developed countries through respective country distributors and it will be spreading soon to more regions. We have already started putting our foot in the door riding on our unique Multi Cutting Edge tool offering.

Besides, presenting of our products at various national and international industrial exhibitions is a regular exercise. The visibility through these exhibitions has helped us tremendously in brand building and reaching out to customers.

One often hears of cheap imports. What is your experience?

Cheap imports are part of life for every genuine product. These are copycat products mainly originating from China who copy any good design that comes to the market. However we are not worried because these do not assure right materials of construction (MOC) and performance. Hence users immediately realise the futility of using such cheap products wherein value is not guaranteed. Further support for these products is also not always assured. We are creating special awareness about these products in the minds of users.

Make in India is the buzz now. Any plan for expanding manufacturing operations or adding new product lines?

CP Grat-Ex manufactures world class products right here in India much before the Make in India buzz started. However as more international manufacturers come to India, this will create a big surge in the domestic demand.

Growth in international markets is stagnant at present; however domestic market looks very promising especially due to the Make in India campaign. We have plans to double our manufacturing capacity in the next two years to capitalise on this growth. We have already factored in this growth while investing in infrastructure and hence we will have no problem ramping up production.