Ramkrishna Forgings Limited (RKFL) is the fastest growing forge shop in this country and has ambitious plans for growth.

Forging is the backbone of every industry whether it is the textile industry or automobile, rail or defence, aeronautics or space or the nuclear power industry. No industry can exist or work without the support of the forging industry. Forgings may be classified into ferrous and non-ferrous forgings.

In the case of ferrous products, the word forgings technically means heating iron and steel blanks to a temperature above 1250°C and squeezing the material with the help of various tools to bring it to the desired shape and size. By the process, compaction of steel and grain bonding increases, thus enhancing the strength of the product, which ultimately gives more reliability to the product.

Forgings is like a huge tree of the engineering industry and various branches have emerged out of the same, be it cold forgings, warm forgings, hot forgings and many other streams. In hot forgings also there are various types of equipment and processes, which are used to undertake forgings and that becomes the baseline of their recognition.

In the engineering sector, automobile, defence, railways, aeronautics, and navy – they all account for heavy requirement of steel forgings. Railways, defence and the engineering industries have huge requirement of forgings and the market economy is also affected by the health of this industry.

India plays a big role in the world economy and any number of forging companies, with the proper support of the government, can survive in India, as there is huge consumption of forgings in the domestic market. In India, the engineering industry can flourish well with proper government support since the Indian economy is self-sustainable and industry in India does not require any outside support against this background. If the government functions properly and supports the industry by its proper policies, there is always huge demand of various products and the forging industry can grow leaps and bounds.

Presently, the forging industry in India has to depend on foreign buyers and foreign OEMs for their support because of lack of support by the government. Total installed capacity of forging industry is more than 40 lakh metric tonnes whereas the production is around 21.5 lakh metric tonnes. India is the epicentre in production of automobile parts all over the world. From India, forged parts are being manufactured and supplied to most of the countries in the world. In India, the forging industry has come up in a big way technologically, supporting all other industries throughout the world. With the growth of the Indian economy, the forging industry is bound to flourish all across the country.

Kolkata-based Ramkrishna Forgings Limited (RKFL) is the fastest growing forge shop in this country making forgings from 1 kg to 150 kg single piece in close die forging and also up to 3000 kg in open die forgings. Taking into account the current growth in consumption of forgings and the projected growth of the consuming sectors, it is expected that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the forging industry will be around 6% during the period 2013-17.

The company manufactures forging products for automotive, railway, defence, farm equipment and general engineering sectors. It undertakes closed doe forgings from 2 kg to 125 kg single piece and has a battery of drop hammers from 0.5 T to 3 T capacity and air hammers from 3 T to 6.5 T capacity. It also has a battery of up-setters – 6” and 5”.

In Ring Rolling, the company has latest, state-of-the-art, fully automated technology from SMS Meer – Germany, known as Wagner Banning Mill, to manufacture ring rolled components from 30 kg to 75 kg in weight, OD – 500 mm with yield up to 90% with a production capacity to roll 3500 rings per day and 12 million rings per annum.

In Press Forgings, the company has a fully automated line equipped with various state-of-the-art machinery and presses ranging from 2000 T to 12500 T, wedge press and a fully automated robotic line.

In future RKFL will be moving towards orbital and near net shaped forgings and bring a new technology in this country. The company is looking at massive growth in the field of forgings by putting up an open forging press to forge a single piece of 150 T and if required to go for backward integration.

Ramkrishna Forgings has always believed in new technologies, which is cost effective, excellent quality and environmental friendly.