Covestro inaugurated its new production lines for polycarbonate compounding at their Greater Noida Plant in India. Through its advanced capabilities, the company offers one of the broadest product portfolios and industry-leading solutions to enhance their customer service. To meet the demands and to support the ‘Make in India’ movement, Covestro planned this expansion in India. This high-tech plant was recently put into operation.
The plant has undergone several de-bottlenecking exercises in the past and as of 2017 it was able to support about 50% of the domestic requirements, while the remaining capacity was supported from Map Ta Phut Site in Thailand. With the objective to build a resilient business, the capacity expansion project was initiated in the year 2017.
This is the first large-sized project in India after Covestro was carved out from Bayer in the year 2015. With the installation of the 2 new lines, the capacity more than doubled for polycarbonate compounding at the Indian plant. This is the first project across all Covestro sites globally to implement the Compounding Blue Print concept.
“Nothing we do is worth getting hurt for!” the guiding principle of Covestro, always remained the motto of this project. Throughout the project the team achieved a clean safety record with ‘ZERO’ recordable incidents.
The project team had to tackle several exceptional challenges like a construction ban due to dust pollution in Delhi region, COVID lockdowns etc. Global and local travel restrictions during this period further impacted the project activities and many of the overseas equipment had to be installed and commissioned with virtual vendor support only. While timelines had to be adjusted, owing to the great teamwork, the project was realised within the original budget despite these major challenges.
Site Manager V Kumaraguru was very happy with the outcome of this major project: “It is a great feeling to have completed the capacity expansion project of the Compounding Plant at Greater Noida, India, very specifically without any safety incidents. The collaboration of the project team, start-up team and the support from all our partner companies were the important factors to successfully put these new lines into operation.” he summarised.
A wonderful audio-visual on the project from its inception in May 2019 till the completion was played on screen that took the team down the memory lane. This was followed by virtual ribbon cutting by Anand Srinivasan, and a small traditional ceremony of lamp lighting and coconut breaking by V. Kumaraguru.
On the occasion, Dr. Nicolas Stoeckel, Head of Operations Engineering Plastics, who joined the celebration virtually, shared his thoughts. “We have been investing in capacities from Germany to China to India to further improve our competitiveness and customer-centricity. The latest expansion in Greater Noida – a key component of EP’s global footprint – will further enhance our capacity to better serve our customers in the region. Congratulations and many thanks to the team for achieving this great accomplishment despite all the challenges,” Stoeckel said.
Anand Srinivasan, Managing Director – Covestro (India) Pvt. Ltd. congratulated the team on achieving this milestone and said “This investment in production technology reflects our growth as a company, and further demonstrates our commitment to serving our customers sustainably. We continue to proactively partner with our customers by anticipating their needs, studying the market trends and being available locally. I want to thank our team for their efforts in achieving this major milestone. We are confident that this exciting new investment will be highly successful.”