The makers of innovative and eco-friendly steel cable drums for dispatch of finished cables and conductors, Mumbai-based Cabrol Group, an ISO 9001:2008 certified company, has been a pioneering manufacturer that now has three state-of-the-art production plants with an international marketing office in the US

Very rarely would you come across a company that first talks about the need to save the global environment and then about its products. The Mumbai-based Cabrol Group is one such organisation. "Our entire business was born out of an eco-friendly idea in 1990. We all are aware that cables need wooden drums for their packaging and transport and it is in this space that we have 'reinvented the wheel' by introducing cost-effective, eco-friendlier steel cable drums instead of wooden cable drums. We have branded them as 'Cabrol'. These have many benefits over the current conventional wooden drums. Our products help to save the trees. We are proud to consider our business as the one which makes the globe a greener place," says Amit Shah, Director, Cabrol Group.

A leading manufacturer of steel cable drums, Cabrol Group was established by Nalin Shah and supplies high-quality durable cable drums to top companies in India and around the world. Recently it developed custom-made 14-feet reels for a client overseas. "This feat was an engineering challenge which was achieved with highly experienced quality workmanship and sound technical knowledge of our engineers," Amit Shah says. With a turnover of USD 9 million last year, the company operates out of two manufacturing units in India in Maharashtra and Gujarat and one in the Sultanate of Oman. "Our units are spread over a total area of 1,20,000 square feet with an annual production capacity of 15,000 metric tonne," he informs. Here, the reels are manufactured according to DIN, Western Electric, NEMA and Aluminum Association standards and customised as per clients' requirements.

High up on the company's product list are the collapsible steel cable reels which Cabrol India claims to have introduced in India in 1989. The advantages of using these reels include: better safety of cable or conductor, no requirement of nails, reusability, easily disposable, negligible cable or conductor loss during the laying process, machine compatible and recovery of at least 35 per cent value of the drums by scrapping them. Cabrol Group believes in offering value addition to all its clients, associates, industry and also the environment by using high-grade and prime quality steel for long lasting, aesthetically appealing, and perfectly designed cable drums. Welded steel profiles are used to create a lightweight yet robust reel. The corrugated head sheets on the outside of the flanges as well as the additional 'T' beams on the top of the flanges at the outside edge cause the reels to absorb heavy loads.

"The reel will remain true to its original geometry through the various stiffening points. Extra care is taken to ensure a 90-degree angle between the drum and the flanges, while applying a continuous welding seam," Shah informs. He further adds, "Our company always ensures that our clients get the best service from us and we would go out of the way to satisfy any specific technical needs of our clients. One such example we can cite is of a recent project in the USA where one of our esteemed clients based out of Texas requested to have a team on site at their remote West Texas facility to dismantle over a couple of thousand drums, which was a strenuous and demanding job. The team successfully completed the project before the allotted deadline and the knocked down drums were shipped backed via ocean freight. These will be reused to ship aluminum cable."

The Group has successfully managed to penetrate markets where wooden drums were the only norm in the industry. "With relentless persuasion and strategic planning we educated potential and existing clients about the advantages of steel cable drums, which has resulted in Cabrol Group being the largest manufacturer and supplier of dispatch-type steel cable drums in the world," Shah states.

Cabrol Group also markets other products including customised dispatch cable drums (an economical substitute to wooden drums) and Nolco-Flex which is a protective cover made for all items that are round. "This has proved to be an excellent protective cover against damage caused by pressure, collision and other physical influences, whether applied to cable drums, sensitive coils, rollers, tubes or even organ pipes. Nolco-Flex comes fan-folded on pallets in a continuous standard length of 120 running meters. That makes handling very easy during transport, stocking and packing operations," he informs.

In the near future the company is planning to come up with a new business plan for its clients. "This plan is for the benefit of our regular and new clients whereby they would get the same thing for less. Our current business trend is to sell drums, but in our new plan we would like to lease drums for a pre-decided period. Definitely, leasing would be at least 30 per cent cheaper than buying the cable reels. One of our other future plans includes plastic drums required for consumer applications and also cable companies with smaller sizes. All this will help the company grow and diversify the business in the long term," Shah says.

(Contact: Cabrol India, 127, Sheraton Classic, 104-A Wing, Dr. Charat Singh Colony, Andheri (East), Mumbai - 400 093. Tel: 022-28311494, Fax: 022-28313672, 
E-mail: amitshah@cabrolindia.com, Website: www.cabrolindia.com)