The US-headquartered Carr Lane Manufacturing Co - which provides a large selection of tooling components, clamps, fixturing and related workholding products for all areas of manufacturing - showcased its innovative range of solutions for aerospace industry at IMTEX 2023. The family owned company started production unit in Chennai recently to be closer to its Indian customers. In India, the Bangalore-based IBK Engineers Pvt Ltd (iBizKart.com) distributes Carr Lane products in country.

Colin W Frost, President, Carr Lane Manufacturing Co, elaborated, “Carr Lane was established by my grandfather in 1952. We started our business by producing aerospace tooling components and, even today, aerospace continue to be our major customers. About 70 per cent of our business comes from aerospace sector. We make locating components and clamping elements for various industries. We started our operation in India at Chennai about 12-14 months back. Our products are specialised (some requiring tolerance level as low as 5 micron), which intrinsically translates into manual production. India helps us to product low-volume products cost-effectively.”

With the Government pushing for Make-in-India to promote indigenous design, development and manufacturing of defence equipment, platforms, systems and sub-systems, Carr Lane believes more business opportunity will come its way. "With indigenous push by PM Narendra Modi, we are seeing increase in interest to establish manufacturing base for aircraft in India and suppliers like Carr Lane (who has a global reputation) will be in the best position to fulfill the needs of these companies. We are proud to be a part of the indigenisation project in India," he said.

The company used IMTEX as a platform to showcase its made in India products along with other solutions for industrial applications. "At IMTEX, we are showcasing products, which are less known in India. We are also highlighting edge clamping products. While we continue to produce indigenised version of our standard products, we will deploy products which are unique for Make in India items. Along with aerospace, we are bullish about the automotive industry, which is the second biggest market for our products,” stated Colin Frost.