Chanderpur Works Pvt. Ltd : 50 Glorious years in integrated engineering excellence

Mr. Sudhir Chandra, Director
Chanderpur Works Pvt. Ltd.

Chanderpur Works Pvt. Ltd. is serving industries for over 50 years and is one of the leading organizations to offer quality customized turnkey plants and project services for cement plants, cement machinery, lime plants, sugar plant machinery and fertilizer plants. The company also deals in products like ball mills, rotary kilns, etc. Chanderpur Works is also the winner of the national award for excellency in Manufacturing. Mr. Sudhir Chandra, Director, ruminates on the achievements of the company and the challenges ahead. Excerpts.

Q. What inspired you to start your business and what are your business domains?
This is our parental business. Our grandfather started the first unit in 1946 and it is always our desire to grow our business further. Regarding business domains, we are manufacturing Cement Plants, Fertilizer Plants, Lime Plants, Biomass Gassifiers, Coal Gassifiers, Mineral Processing Equipment, Materials Handling Equipment, etc.

Q. You have completed more than 50 years in the business? How do you take this journey of your success? Please highlight your achievements?
We started with a small workshop having strength of around 50 persons. At that time, we were manufacturing only sugar machinery parts. In this decade, the company has grown to manufacture complete boiler house of sugar plants. In 70’s, we added our paper divison and started supplying full pulp mill to paper plants. In 80’s, we started manufacturing cement plants on VSK based technology. We also helped big OEMs, such as Humboltd, Gebr Pfiffer, SMS Siemag, etc. In 90’s, we started concentrating on exports and supplied our equipment to countries like Botswana, Senegal, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Djibouti, Zambia, Thailand, Canada, Bolivia, etc. In the new Millennium, CPW entered the field of renewal energy by making joint venture with TERI, New Delhi to supply Biomass Gassifiers. We also started supplying cement plants based on Rotary Kiln technology. In 2010, our company signed a JV with Christian Pfeiffer, GmbH, Germany, to supply Classifiers.

Q. You are inclined more to provide turnkey business solutions. Any particular reason for this?
The customer always prefers those suppliers, who can offer them maximum number of solutions under one roof by providing turnkey solutions, we fulfill all the requirements of the customers.

Mr. Sudhir Chandra, Director receives
the National Award for Excellency Year
2010 bestowed on Chanderpur Works

Q. Do you feel that turnkey solutions are the most viable alternative to make people accountable?
Yes, because in turnkey projects, the customer has to only watch the performance of the plant. So the manufacturer becomes fully accountable.

Q. You emphasize on ‘cost effective production solution’. Can you elaborate on this?
Yes, we give cost-effective solutions to our customer, as we give a flexible option. We offer plants, which are partially automatic or fully automatic, depending on the availability of skilled manpower in that country. We also offer multi-fuel options, so that the customer can use the cheapest fuel available at their place. We also offer a choice of additives, so that he can use economical and best additives. We give the latest technology, highly energy efficient equipment to reduce wastage of energy.

Q. What’s your benchmark for quality?
We are manufacturing and exporting the equipment. We mostly follow the American, German and Indian standards in manufacturing as per choice of our customers. All the quality procedures are as per international standards. Our company is certified 9001:2008 by DNV. Some of our equipment are “CE” marked. We have the manufacturing capacity at par with any other company in India or overseas, in similar field of manufacturing. We have got National award for excellence in manufacturing, from MSME, Govt. of India for the year 2010.

Q. What are your core business strengths?
Our core business strengths are :

• Our 50 years’ experience and huge technical database including drawings, case studies, books , standards etc.
• Our experienced staff. We have a number of staff members, having more than 20 years’ experience. Present promoters are technical graduates and are highly experienced.
• Our satisfied customer base and reputation in the market.
• Very low debt equity ratio
• Given a concept, we can develop any type of equipment for heavy machinery segment.

Q. Please share with us the most challenging engineering project that you have been involved?
We have done a project for Jindal Stainless Ltd for their chrome ore beneficiation plant. This is a new line we ventured into with a gut feeling. We had not made such equipment earlier, but we made everything in-house and their plant was commissioned successfully.

We have also taken up the assignment offered by Tata Chemicals and India Gypsum Ltd for enhancing the capacity of their imported grinding units.

Q. What do you enjoy the most or least about engineering?
We enjoy new challenges in design, manufacture and erection of plants, which are different from our regular line of manufacturing. We enjoyed least, when we work with big MNC’s, as they get involved in a lot of paper work.

Q. Have you developed any new engineering specialty skills in your journey of 50 years in business?
We have developed a lot of new engineering skills, in the field of design, automation and special purpose machines.

Q. Did you ever confront a problem that really tested your engineering mettle?
Whenever we supply any new equipment, we always faced one or two problems, which tested our engineering mettle.

A Biomass Gassifier developed
by Chanderpur Works

Q. What have you to say on the industrial environment? Is it conducive to growth?
Our projects are medium scale projects, starts from Rs. 20 Crores upto Rs. 200 Crores, so these plants are generally based on localized conditions and they are put up as per requirement of that area. So our projects do not very much depend on industrial environment, but in the other sector, where we work for big companies, recession is going on, so in our capital goods industry people are not planning any further investment in manufacturing.

Q. Give us an example of something that you have learned from a mistake that you made on a job at a clients place?
Generally, the erection & commissioning staff bypass the sequence of erection & commissioning, due to which they make mistakes and when the equipment is started, it doesn’t work and the whole equipment is to be re-erected and commissioned. Realizing this mistake in our first plant, we fixed the sequence of installing each equipment.

Q. Tell me about a time when you surpassed all expectations of your client?
It’s difficult to single out one client or job. We always surpass the expectations of our customers in giving services during supplies, erection & commissioning.

Q. Do you have any weaknesses?
All the equipment we make are tailor-made and we do not manufacture ‘standard’ equipment. So after taking the order, we always depend on the customer to lift the equipment.

Q. You have also received the status of Star Export House. How does this help?
Star Export House is a rating/certificate given by the Govt. of India to the manufacturers who export their equipment. The company gets a lot of privileges under ‘star export house’, such as exemption in giving Bank Guarantees, etc.

Q. What are the challenges ahead for you?
The main challenges for our company are customer satisfaction. With technology advancement, the customer became more & more demanding. He wants the best quality in least cost and all the documentation as per international standards. So, we are working hard to meet our customer requirement.

Q. How do you look at the future of your company?
In the past three years, we have attained a growth rate of 40%, but now we could not sustain the same rate due to recession. However, after recession, we will attain the same growth rate. In next five years, our turnover will be three times. We will grow in our core fields i.e. cement plants, mineral processing and renewable energy.