Wendt India is a technology leader in super abrasive products and manufactures a range of diamond/CBN grinding wheels and tools. At IMTEX 2015, the company grabbed plenty of eyeballs for its tools and technologies for the machine tool industry. The company also offers high precision specialized CNC rotary surface grinding machines, wheel profiling and dressing machines, precision honing machines, guide roll grinding and special purpose grinding machines.
Rajesh Khanna, CEO, Wendt India, said, “In the past 4-5 years, we have moved away from being a tooling supplier to a complete solutions provider. We also make five million parts for three of our MNC clients.” He feels more value additions happen in precision components. “We also work with OEMs so as to lose no margins. And we have to scale it up in a big way. By 2020 we want to touch the Rs 1,000 crore mark,” he added.
He opined, “In India we are a direct marketing company. It’s a tougher route. If you invest in the right people, your marketing costs will be lesser. We ask our customers if they have a problem and then tell them about our solutions. We mostly work with corporate, aerospace, defence and steel where great precision is needed. We make products as good as anyone else but at a faster rate and much cheaper.”
In the coming years, the company intends to put in more efforts in defence, aerospace, and OEMs, and in engineering. “Traditionally, good machines were imported. Now, most of the machines are made in India or even assembled here. The trend is towards infrastructure and smart cities,” he noted.
At IMTEX 2015, Wendt launched three machines. “With the twin spindle honing machine, our company will be the second in the country to make this. We launched a CNC cylindrical grinder focused on auto component manufacturers, which was imported in the past. And thirdly the latest horizontal rotary surface grinder,” he explained.
Traditionally Wendt’s R&D spend in India had been around 2-3%. “Going forward it would be a lot more. Even before ‘Make in India’ started, 30% of what we made were being exported. By 2020, we expect to export at least 50% of it,” he said. The company now has an approved R&D facility in India. “Traditionally we had technical collaborations. We are also setting up product testing and validation facility so that most of our new recipes are tested in-house so that when it goes to the customers it is as good as the product,” he concluded.