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Soaring rubber prices your REAL challenge?

Think again and look deeper into what is affecting your bottom line…..

From the industry perspective it is observed that the fluctuating rubber prices are a cause of great concern amongst the industry stakeholders. Its impact has been felt highest amongst the small and medium rubber manufacturing enterprises.

BAINITE MACHINES PRIVATE LIMITED.

From infrastructure to machines to investments, the Indian companies have come a long way. The dynamics of success have changed. Today the key success factors are innovation, adopting latest technology and best human resource practices.

We have seen that many small and medium players aspire to deliver quality and grow but restrict themselves by adopting obsolete technology and trying to make them work. This trend is slowly changing though we wish the rate of change is quicker. As technology becomes obsolete and maintenance cost increases coupled with fluctuations in raw material prices, there is increased pressure among business owners to keep their businesses afloat.

There is a need for companies to develop equipments to provide latest technology to the rubber industry on a continuous basis with the level of service support desirous to the customers at a reasonable cost.

Statistics reveal there are approximately 6,000 rubber-based industries in India – of which 300 are medium-scale and around 5,600 are small-scale and tiny sector units. Together they manufacture more than 35,000 rubber products, employing 400,000 thousand people, and, contributing Rs. 40 billion to the National Exchequer through taxes, duties and other levies.

The rubber machinery industry in India manufactures internal mixers, mixing mills, extruders, tyre curing presses, tyre moulds, tyre building machines, servicer, bias cutters, rubber injection moulding machine, etc. In our endeavour to cover all segments in the rubber industry we have initiated several new sections in Rubber India, we are profiling a company from rubber machinery manufacturing industry in this issue which is Bainite Machines Private Limited.

Bainite Machines Private Limited, (an ISO 9001:2008 and CE certified organization) is a company established in 1983, with its state-of-the art manufacturing plant located in Navi Mumbai.

Asserts, Mr. Prasanth Warrier, General Manager – Marketing, “Bainite is today the only company in India which can offer customized machinery in the areas of Mixing, Compounding, Calendering and Extrusion to the rubber industry on a turnkey basis.”

For starters, Bainite (in metallurgical terms) is a phase generated in steel and alloy steel by heat treatment – thus imparting properties of both toughness and hardness to the metal. It is difficult to achieve both full hardness and toughness simultaneously. Bainitizing, is a process to retain desired toughness and hardness. Explains, Mr. D.N.Suvarna, Managing Director, “Bainite adopted this name since it believes in offering our customers the best of both worlds – superior technology, quality and service assurance.”

Well, Mr. Suvarna should know better - a metallurgist by qualification from IIT-Mumbai, he has 3 decades strong experience in the field of material science. Under his leadership, Bainite has been building new machines low on maintenance and with high wear protection of critical components. His management, production, and operations knowhow has turned a small company into a powerful leader within the rubber processing industry over the last 25 years.

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Bainite started investing diligently andintelligently in higher-end and precision machinetools as well as in increasing the plant area andplant capacity besides in developing highlyskilled man-power and supervising staff.Bainite’s latest state-of-the-art facility at Rabale,north of Mumbai, is a symbol of its presentenvious growth.

Unique designing

The company designs machines throughextensive field data and feedbacks, contin-uously focussing on innovation and improve-ment both in material selection and thermoprocessing with a view to developing improvedproperties and user-friendly features. Bainitemachinery products, built with componentshaving wear-protective overlays, ever keep theirdimensional integrity. This ensures theirreliability and durability of functioning inproduction systems and boosts the machineperformance.

Explains the Managing Director: “Combi-ning modern technology with decades-longexperience and blending mechanical engine-ering expertise with thorough understanding ofcustomer needs, Bainite offers the industryquality solutions by supplying new machinery/equipment, rebuilding or upgrading oldmachinery and supplying spares to match

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sought-after solution providers for the tyre,rubber and plastics industries – domestic as wellas overseas.

High-tech departmentsThe state-of-the-art Engineering Design

Department, with all the latest designprogramming tools and softwares and mannedby highly qualified Design Engineers, basicallyforms the backbone of the company. Emphasisis also given on Systems and Planning,recognising the importance of the PlanningDepartment which acts as the nerve centre ofthe company.

Says D.N. Suvarna, Bainite’s most enter-prising and resourceful Managing Director:“Bainite produces machinery products em-ploying cutting-edge and highly user-friendlytechnology with outstanding features whichensures greater returns on the investment of ourcustomers. The machines are also provided withgood aesthetic appeal while emphasising ontheir quality, reliability and durability.” “Bainiteowes much of its steady and rapid growth to itscapacity to produce high-tech machines, mainlyfor the tyre companies,” he adds.

Soon, with the tyre/rubber industryrecognising the potential of Bainite, the demandfor its machinery products started rising day byday. And, to meet the ever-growing demand,

we seek tie-up for

high-performance

machinery:

we seek tie-up for

high-performance

machinery:

Bainite supremo

A qualified Metallurgical Engineer from India’spremier IIT Powai, D.N. Suvarna, the highlyaccomplished Managing Director of BainiteMachines, is the strong pillar and guiding forceof Bainite Machines. A man who worked for 11years with the R&D division of Larsen & Toubro(L&T), India’s celebrated engineering company,he brings to Bainite a lot of working experiencemuch needed by the company. Also a reputedspeaker at important international conferences,he has an illustrious track record of over 20years in the development of new machines,along with solid experience in the field ofmaintenance and wear protection of machinerycomponents. It is thanks to his vision andentrepreneurial spirit, the company hascurrently been able to scale new heights andgain global recognition.

In an interview to Rubber Asia, he says thatBainite is keen on working together with somemajor equipment producers in the world so asto produce more cost-competitive and high-performance machinery products. Excerpts:

What are the factors that contributed to Bainite’semergence as a top rubber machinery manufacturerin Asia?

There are many factors that helped Bainite’s growth.These include:

� The dedication and devotion, honesty and sincerityof the workers, staff and executives at all levelsand the motivation they get from the people at thehelm.

� Recognition of the Design Department as the mainbackbone, which works very closely with industryexperts and users and develop machines consideringthe inputs and valuable feedback from them.

� The emergence of Asia as world’s main productionand manufacturing centre, which has created a goodamount of demand for our machinery products.

� The stress we put on marketing in the early stagesitself to understand the customer needs andmanufacturing products to suit their needs.

How advanced is the technology currentlyemployed by the company?

I would rate the technology of Bainite to be on a parwith the best in the world, in terms of mechanics,dynamics, process controls and programmes and theirfeatures like online monitoring of the process etc. We areproud to say, all these are done entirely in-house withoutany support of any foreign corporate entity till date.

Interview

D.N. Suvarna

Bainite building

Statistics reveal there are approximately 6,000 rubber-based industries in India – of which 300 are medium-scale and around 5,600 are small-scale and tiny sector units. Together they manufacture more than 35,000 rubber products, employing 400,000 thousand people, and, contributing Rs. 40 billion to the National Exchequer through taxes, duties and other levies.

www.bainitemachines.in www.bainitemachines.in

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The success story had a humble beginning established in 1985 with a 3 man army and a turnover of approx 20 lakhs to a 180 plus strong team of motivated individuals and a turnover of 30 crores. Bainite has gone a long way from being producer of critical spares for the main tyre manufacturing machines to production and supply of sub assemblies and subsequently full-fledged machines. Today Bainite is one of the top Rubber Processing Machinery Manufacturers in Asia.

Their vision for the future is to establish a very close working relationship with any of the main equipment producers for tyre companies in the world so that they can work together to make production cost-competitive, make latest technology more affordable and increase the range of product offerings. Bainite is

upgrading its machine tool facilities and widening its product as well as customer base.

Their customers acknowledge Bainite as technology-driven engineering company involved in design and manufacture of New Machinery, Rebuild and Upgrade of old machinery and supply of Peripheral Machinery, Spares & Ancillary parts. Collaborates,

a senior executive of a leading tyre major based in South India, “The quality and reliability of their machines has been consistent and performance satisfactory”.

Adds, Mr. F.J.Sidhwa, Technical Director, “Our reputation grew from our capability to tackle many crucial problems encountered by giant Tyre companies and Polymer Processors”.

A Chartered Mechanical Engineer, Mr.Sidhwa is a well-known expert with over 45 years of rich experience in the Rubber Machinery Industry and a pillar of strength for Banite since the last 16 years.Technically trained at Farrel facilities in Italy, USA and UK, also at Kobelco (Japan), and VMI (Holland), he is widely respected in the industry for providing solutions to complex problems.

“Customers find us offering quality products that are reliable, durable and give trouble-free performance for the end-user”, enlightens Mr S.J.Shetty, Senior VP – Works, another pillar of the organization. A true manufacturing veteran with experience in prominent companies like Vikrant Tyres and Ceat International, he is in charge of the entire manufacturing process at Bainite. His strength lies in his ability to look into the manufacturing process from the customer’s perspective. He adopts the no compromise policy on quality principle and leads by example and strives to achieve the high benchmark set by the organization.

Bainite has been partnering many tyre majors as well as the medium and small industries in countries like Sri Lanka, Isreal, Saudi Arabia apart from India with future plans to develop improved machines to cater to the small and medium rubber manufacturers in the rubber growing countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Bainite has the technological know-how and infrastructure to equip small and medium rubber based industry with technologically superior machines which have very high return on investments. Emphasizes Mr. Suvarna, “Today, a small and medium rubber manufacturer need not look at Europe or other Western countries for technologically superior solutions in their compounding, mixing or extruding requirements. Plus, we are uniquely positioned to offer after sales service with a

turnaround time of 48 hours across the country”. The company believes in long-term partnership thus traveling the extra mile to help customers take preventive maintenance to avoid crisis and production loss due to breakdowns.

Bainite has indigenously developed Twin-Screw Sheeters (TSS), Sheet Feeders which can improve their customers’ efficiency of compounding operations. Bainite offers internal mixers, mixing mills or batch offs with sophisticated automation and controls. Intermeshing Mixers (or intermixers) from 50L to 150L capacities are receiving wide acceptance in the market with non-tyre based rubber industries. Recently, they have also supplied a sophisticated 16x42 Mixing Mill with stock-blender to meet very high precision needs and quality requirements of a multinational organization.

With design and engineering facilities among the best in the world, Bainite can match international quality standards and are equal if not superior to compete with reputed global brands. Clarifies, Mr. Abid Mohib, Head – Design “Our in-house design capability offers a unique opportunity to provide the best customized solutions to suit all our customers’ requirements - from a small or medium manufacturing unit to a large tyre manufacturing company.” Their machines are known for their quality to render trouble-free performance for long periods than most competitors.

In the last 5 years Bainite has professionalized their HR department and all their recruitment and man power development is taken care by them. Adds, Mr. Prasenjit Gaekwad, Manager – HR, “The Human Resource Department functions independently and all recruitment processes are based on merit”. They have a robust employee

SWOT ANALYSISStrength Weakness Opportunity Threats

Engineering & infrastructure Brand positioning

Growth in rubber manufacturing industries

Competion from low priced machinery from other countries

Innovation & designing capabilities

Lack of awareness amongst non-tyre rubber industry

Shifting demand for reliable & durable machines as opposed to cheaper up-front cost

(any) economic slowdown

Technology Enhancement of focus from tyre to non tyre sector

Prompt after sales service Industry acceptance of techonological upgradation

Competency Widen the range of products through global tie-ups

Skilled man power development

scaling global presence

Product customisationQuality & durabilityTurnkey solutionsProfessional management~ 3 Decades of expertise

The success story had a humble beginning established in 1985 with a 3 man army and a turnover of approx 20 lakhs to a 180 plus strong team of motivated individuals and a turnover of 30 crores

“Today, a small and medium rubber manufacturer need not look at Europe or other Western countries for technologically superior solutions in their compounding, mixing or extruding requirements. Plus, we are uniquely positioned to offer after sales service with a turnaround time of 48 hours across the country”.

COVER STRORY COVER STRORYwww.bainitemachines.in www.bainitemachines.in

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development program that enables inter-functional career elevation. Their employment engagement program is multifold from a calendar for training for the white collared and blue collared employees to boost their career development growth opportunities. Bainite is one of the few companies having a structured reward and recognition schemes chalked out to ensure motivation of all employees across functions. The employees and the management team all are part of the Bainite

Family and share their success and sorrow together.

Their success can be attributed to the organization’s ability to identify the hidden talents and faculties and developing them by providing a platform to use their acquired skill-set and excel by achieving individual goals as well as organizational goals. Re-affirms Suvarna “People are our Primovers”.

One of the key strengths of Bainite is that 80% of their turnover comes from the domestic market and 20% from exports. This not only guards them from the challenges faced due to dependency on markets abroad but the fact that there is huge potential to grow in the domestic market that is growing at a fast pace. Thus there is an opportunity

to consolidate their position to diversify and grow in new areas.

Informs Sidhwa “Reliable profits need reliable machines and prompt after-sales service; this is where we deliver over low cost competitors” and acknowledges simultaneously that this alone is not sufficient to fight Chinese competition. Bainite recognizes that competing on cost is not easy and plans to focus on constant innovation through Research and Development; enhance their core competency and to further control costs, they are in the process of vendor development for outsourcing production of Non Critical parts. Explains Suvarna “It’s important that a very dedicated team is built with the goal of efficiency, proficiency, cost saving, development of technology, research as well as aesthetics and making the machinery systems more “User Friendly” and above all keeping the safety of human life as the top priority.” They are also upgrading to CNC machines to increase productivity and work towards innovative product development and enhancement. Another thrust is on ERP implementation. Says, Ketan Malaviya, GM – Finance and leading this initiative “ERP is being introduced to avoid wastages, pilferage, lower rejection rates and improve productivity at ground level”.

Bainte’s success so far has been in the tyre sector and is a well known and accepted brand in the segment both within the country and abroad. They have recently forayed into the non tyre segment and have been well accepted. They are now keen to consolidate their position as a complete solution provider for machinery requirements in the non tyre segment. Says Prasanth Warrier, “We offer services from designing to supply of machinery, erection and commissioning to after-sales service support. Most of the companies in the non tyre segment are small and medium and want customized solutions at an affordable price.” This serves as a great opportunity for Bainite as they have always focused on latest technology, with maximum output, at a reasonable price with minimal maintenance and prompt after sales service.

And for the small and medium customers, more than ever, there are advanced solutions available in India to adopt latest technology at reasonable cost, backed up by prompt support to boost their productivity and secure their bottom-line.

BAINITE MACHINES PRIVATE LIMITED.

“It’s important that a very dedicated team is built with the goal of efficiency, proficiency, cost saving, development of technology, research as well as aesthetics and making the machinery systems more “User Friendly” and above all keeping the safety of human life as the top priority.”

COVER STRORY www.bainitemachines.in