How is the market for wire ropes shaping up in India?
The wire ropes is used in general engineering, fishing, elevators, cranes, material handling, power transmission, suspension bridges, onshore / offshore oil exploration, ports and shipping, mining, defence, railways and allied industries. However, with over 35% y-o-y increase in capex and a proposed infrastructure spend of over Rs. 10 lakh crores in Budget 2022-23, the Union government has reinforced its commitment to using infrastructure as a force multiplier for sustained economic growth, accordingly we feel that requirement of wire ropes will continuously increase with the improvement of existing infrastructure facilities across the factors.
How much market share do you hold and what are your plans to increase your market share?
Our vision is to become the global player and major distribution in the International Market; however, we are able to sale our 15 percent of production in the Indian Market. We intend to increase our sale 25 to 30 percent in domestic in next 3 years.
What are your offerings for the mining sector?
Mining sector is one of the biggest consumers of the wire ropes, to get the requirement, we have capability to supply ropes form 6 mm to 90 mm thickness and tensile grade up to 2160. We have also added new varieties of ropes namely plasticated ropes and cushion core ropes which are used in mining sector.
In the recent past prices of raw materials (steel) have increased considerably. How are you optimising the use of raw materials to ensure highest product quality with lowest ecological footprint?
We generally have the order book of 3 to 4 months and we maintain the requisite inventories in the form of Raw Material, Work in Progress and Finished Goods to mitigate the upward revision in the steel price. However, there is some negligible impact which company has to bear for the small period of 1 or 2 months, thereafter increases is passes to the end consumers by revising the price for new orders.
The Pandemic has accelerated the shift towards better utilisation of technologies (IoT, AI, Industry 4.0). How have these technologies and innovations helped the company to plug sinking revenue if any?
We are one step ahead in utilization of technology across the industries even before the pandemic situation in the country, it has helped us to improve the efficiency during pandemic time, which reflects the improvement of the performance by 45 to 50 percent in the current year. There is no sinking revenue under the review.
What are your growth plans for your organisation for the next three years? Are there any plans for a new manufacturing facility or acquisition in the offing?
We are currently operating at capacity of 60 percent and we are in process to increase utilization to 80 to 85% in the next 2 years with some addition of balancing equipment’s to improve the overall performance of the company.
