Colin Frost, COO, Carr Lane Manufacturing – recognized as a world leader for standard tooling components used by virtually every industry around the globe – responds to the IPF Questionnaire.

What are the products you are bringing at IMTEX 2017?

Carr Lane Manufacturing will be displaying its full line of more than 30,000 Tooling Components at IMTEX 2017. We have solutions for all workholding applications from simple fixturing to complex.

The global machine tool industry is now adopting the concepts of Industry 4.0. Is the Indian industry ready for this?

Certainly. Indian industry has already overcome many issues of connectivity – 4.0 is a furtherance of this. The challenge, for any industry whether in India or the USA, is the incorporation of a diverse set of machine tools in a single facility; some are more “connectable” than others.

What is the demand status at the moment? India is also a large importer of machine tools.

Manufacturing demand in India is strong and I expect it will continue to grow.

Has the government initiative of Make in India resulted in any increase in demand?

It is difficult to draw conclusions like this. However, the Make in India initiative should certainly have an impact.

What are the problems machine tool manufacturers have to face?

Most significantly that we now operate in a global economy. No longer are the economic issues of one country isolated from others.