L.J. Naidu, Managing Director, GROB Machine Tools India Pvt. Ltd. shares industry outlook, opportunity areas, top trends and solution on display at IMTEX 2019.
Headquartered in Mindelheim, Germany, GROB is a leading global developer of manufacturing systems and machine tools. Established in Munich in 1926, the company today employs 6,600 people worldwide and has production facilities in Germany, Brazil, China, USA and Italy. In India, the GROB brand has been successfully positioned with supplies and services to the major areas of the Indian mechanical engineering landscape, such as automotive, aerospace and mould-making industries. L.J. Naidu, Managing Director, GROB Machine Tools India Pvt. Ltd shares with DMI his views on the growth outlook, opportunity areas, top trends and solution on display at IMTEX 2019.
India’s MCMT Industry: Growth Outlook
As per IMTMA’s latest indicative statistics for 2016-17, the consumption of metal cutting machine tools in India is about Rs 9,165 crore or $1.41 billion. Oxford Economics has projected a consumption of about $1.83 billion for 2018. If we compare with their global consumption figure of $83.55 billion, we in India are at just about 2.2 percent of global metal cutting machine tools (MCMT) consumption even though India is the 12th largest consumer, as per reports. Oxford Economics says that China projected consumption for 2018 is $32.1 billion, which is 38.4 percent of global consumption. That means China’s consumption would be 15 times more than India’s. The essential corollary is that there is a huge space for expansion. IMTMA figures indicate that we are now importing 45 percent of our MCMT consumption. If we have to really be a producer for the world, we need to go a long way in ramping up consumption especially in high-value-adding machine tools for sophisticated production needs.
Top Metal-Cutting Solutions for Growth
GROB is a company that resisted the temptation of entering the General Machining Centre market, which appeared very lucrative in the 1990s. GROB stayed fully committed to Horizontal Machining Centres (HMC) that could perform either as stand-alone units or as key elements in highly engineered production systems that became popular with almost all the big automakers of the world. Demand in India has always been higher for basic technologies of turning, vertical milling and grinding machines. The MCMT industry needs to fulfil the sophisticated machining needs of the fast-evolving Automotive, Aerospace, Die Mould and Medical industries. We feel there will be a higher growth for the Horizontal Machining Centres segment, seeing that it presents so many advantages to the user.
Top Industries for Growth
We are looking at Aerospace, Die Mould and Medical Implant and Devices as drivers of demand for high-quality machining systems. Automotive manufacturing will continue to be a big user of all types of machine tools. Today, India has a small share of global Aerospace manufacturing and there is a scope for substantial growth. About 90 percent of global production is concentrated in the USA, Europe, Canada and Japan. China and Brazil contribute another 5 percent. Therefore, India’s MCMT industry has enough space to expand. With an increasing number of international automotive companies making their mark in India, customer expectations are at an all time high, which presents an enormous scope for MCMT players to make high-end component machining with a focus on quality and productivity.
Top Metal-Cutting Technologies for Growth
Emerging technologies like Additive manufacturing, Industry 4.0 and others are sure to provide a fillip to the India’s MCMT industry to varying degrees. Combining technologies with a focus on practical solutions has always been the strength of GROB. For example, our highly successful Complete Manufacturing Line for cylinder blocks combines the benefits of thermal spraying technology for bettering the performance of the machined bores of the cylinder block.
The fourth industrial revolution is poised to make some changes to the way India manufactures, designs and services its products by making better use of data, computing power, artificial intelligence and analytics. GROB is playing an active role in the VDW project for developing an interface standard for connectivity. Since many years, GROB has already had a package GROBNET4INDUSTRY, for digitizing the production process for better productivity.
Growth Strategy
At GROB India, we were very clear from the beginning that the main strategy that will always work, will be: excellent customer support. We follow this mantra globally, with providing the benefits of innovative design and manufacturing to customers. That is the reason why we have a much larger service and application team when compared to sales. That’s why we have invested in putting up state-of-the-art remote diagnostic systems at our India HQ in Hyderabad, which can access any machine remotely in minutes and offer instant support.
Presenting at IMTEX 2019
When it comes to our Machine Tool offerings, we are a heavily focussed company and make only Horizontal Spindle Universal 5 axes Machines and everything else that make its performance stand out. At IMTEX 2019, we will be showcasing our highly successful 5-axis universal Machining centre GA-550 with Horizontal spindle, with a swivel range of 240 degrees in A axis and 360 Degrees in B axis with a 12000-rpm spindle and 2.5-micron repeatability. We will use this representative model for conversations with our customers, covering GROB’s module production solutions, automation ideas, transport and tool storage solutions, thermal spraying equipment, initiatives in Industry 4.0, Electromobility solutions for electric vehicle production, customer-specific assembly lines and our unique service capabilities that we provide in India.
Visit GROB Machine Tools India at IMTEX 2019 at: Hall 4, Stall No. A108