Materials Handling industry to grow at a reasonable rate

The growth in the material handling industry has been moderate and is mainly driven by growth in the steel, power, infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. We believe that the material handling industry will continue to grow at a reasonable rate. However, we still believe that measures must be taken to encourage capital investment in the country, says Preet Heri, Managing Director, Armsel MHE P. Ltd. in an interview with P. K. Balasubramanian. Excerpts:

Q. What’s the economic scene in India and how conducive is it to business and growth?
At a macroeconomic level, it is quite evident that the growth has slowed down in the recent months. We do not see much reason for this environment to change in the short term. While there are limited investments in the steel and power sector, the oil & gas, auto and manufacturing sectors have substantially cut investments. However, we are still positive about the mid to long-term economic prospects.

Q. What’s its cascading effect on the materials handling industry?
The slow down in the overall economic situation in India has certainly had a cascading negative impact on the material handling industry. Firstly, decision making in investment of material handling equipment’s is taking longer that usual. Further, due to limitation in the number of projects, competition has become quite keen. However, we see this period as a time for consolidating and improving our operations. Our focus is to remain committed to improving the quality of our products & services.

Q. What’s your niche in material handling and what’s your significant contribution to the industry and economy?
Historically, we have been a crane and hoist manufacturing company that could provide a specialized solution to our customers. Some of our customers have been quite demanding when it comes to satisfying their specific requirement in terms of design. We believe that we have been able to meet their demand.

After the acquisition of our company by Kito Corporation, a leading Japanese manufacturer of hoists, we continue to provide such custom built solutions. In addition, we have now introduced the globally renowned products of Kito Corporation to the Indian market. Kito Corporation’s standard products include very high quality, Made in Japan, electric chain hoists, manual chain hoist (aka chain pulley block) and lever hoists. Kito Corporation also has special purpose hoists such as electric chain hoists for windmills (which are typically of very high lift), twin hook hoists, ultra low headroom hoists, single-phase electric chain hoists, etc.

Q. What’s your range of manufacture and which are your unique products with technological edge?
Our product range caters to the wide variety of requirements of Customers. This includes In House Manufactured Items and imported and traded products.

The major products are listed below:
We believe that our uniqueness lies in the ability to deliver specialized overhead material handling equipment field, with the highest level of technology, precision and safety as demanded by our customers.

Q. What have you to say about your manufacturing excellence and quality obsession?
Armsel KITO operational focus areas are marketing and sales, product development, assembly, and maintenance services. Products are based on modularity and standardization and make use of the latest technology and cost-efficient designs with efficient use of raw materials. Maintaining a uniform product platform gives valuable flexibility in terms of capacity utilization and resource allocation. Armsel KITO being a wholly owned subsidiary of Kito Corporation has derived its Vision & Mission from Kito Group’s Mission. Basically, the quality policy of Armsel is aligned with the vision and mission of Armsel KITO & in turn aligned with the mission of the Kito Group.

Our Quality Policy
Armsel is committed to achieve customer satisfaction and the goal of excellence in its activities. We shall achieve this by understanding our customers’ requirements through open communication, by continually improving our product performance, ensuring that our quality management system is continually improved in order to increase customer satisfaction, on-time delivery of products and by continually improving the working environment and quality of life of our employees.

Q. Do you have anything like the ‘first time in the country’?
As we are also in to the business of delivering custom built overhead material handling solutions, we have delivered many such types of equipment. Some of them include, ultra low headroom wire rope hoists, rail handling hoists operating in tandem in a fully automated environment, cooling stack inspection devices, several special purpose winches, special purpose jib cranes for steel / mining industries, explosion proof cranes & hoists etc.

Q. Could you throw some light on your customer base, reach and export markets?
Some of our customers include:
Japanese based customers include leading automotive companies and general constructors:
Although we have done some export business, our focus is to operate in the Indian market, for the time being.

Q. Any accolades/recognitions received for your outstanding performance?
We have been awarded by KSFC (Karnataka State Finance Corporation) for best performance in general industry. Recently, we received our ISO:9001 – 2008 certification from M/s TUV NORD. We have also received recognition from many of our customers such as Tata Steel, Flowserve, etc for our performance.

Q. Could give some idea of your wherewithals?
Our company in India was established in the year 1974. Kito Corporation, Japan, was established in the 1932. The Kito Group recently celebrated its 80th anniversary. Over these 80 years we have been able to develop a rich experience in the field of material handling.

The Registered Office of the company is situated at Mitra Towers, No 10/4 Kasturba Road, Bangalore 560001. Liaison, Marketing and Administration departments are at Office. The factory is situated in Govt. Developed KIADB Jigani Industrial Area, own land of 1,40,000 Sq. feet area, Built up factory working area of 48,500 Sq. feet, and connected electric power of 150 KVA. The Factory working area is made up of six production sheds of one production test bay. All these bays are serviced with two numbers overhead cranes of suitable capacity. The full fledged facility is equipped with end to end manufacturing system comprising of Machine shop, Fabrication / Structural division, Assembly division and Testing. A state of the Art Auto CAD & E-Plan design department takes care of Design Engineering and Drawings. A designer who is assigned by Kito Corporation, Japan heads our Design Department. He has had several qualitative years of experience in Crane & Hoist Design. Workshop consists of heavy and light machine shop, structural fabrication shop, electrical shop, Assembly, finishing, painting, testing, dispatch and other facilities.

For forging, foundry, hardening and tempering of material and non-destructive testing, we sub contract the activity to approved vendors. A full-fledged design and development cell supports the above facilities and quality assurance departments with modern computer aided design back up, with testing and training centre.

Q. What’s the shape of things to come in your sphere of business?
While the material handling industry is witnessing a reasonable growth, year on year, the competition will also get keener owing to the increase in the number of manufacturers. We will be creating an identity of our own by focusing on our and our group company’s vision and mission.

Q. How do you look at the future?
As per our assessment, the Indian material handling market is quite large and our market share may not be considered to be significant. We also anticipate that the market will continue to grow at a moderate pace, in the mid to long-term. Given the same, our focus would be to increase our market share in this segment by delivering technologically advanced equipment backed by a service network that is commensurate to Japanese standards.

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