Ramakant Reddy, MD, LMT Tools India, highlights what sets the company apart and its roadmap for growth in the Indian market.
By Mitalee Kurdekar
How has India been performing for you as a market? Which industry segments do you currently see offering you the biggest opportunities and what are the demand drivers therein?
LMT Tools India has consistently grown over the past years. The Indian automobile sector has been favourable. We are quite competitive in the Indian market by supplying high-quality and high-productivity tools. The demand for our tooling solutions is increasing, which has resulted in the spread in our customer base too. We believe that we are a market leader in the gear-cutting segment. In other segments, such as milling & threading, rolling systems, advance tooling, and reaming, we are focusing on strengthening our market presence.
We see aerospace gaining quite a bit of importance, and with our strong programme, we find ourselves very relevant in that segment. The medical industry is another one that is gaining greater amount of importance. Within the energy industry, we have seen some resurgence in wind energy and the need for newer technologies. Within the automotive industry itself, with the advent of the latest generation of machines coming in, we are beginning to see sizeable interest in the new generation of cutting tools – for example, in gear production, manufacturers have brought in the latest technology machines, which have a high-throughput – so we have had to step in to give them the latest range of tools to meet the expectations of both machine and customer.
LMT’s gear hob plus ChamferCut.
Given the high level of competition in the cutting tools business, could you elaborate on what sets LMT tools apart from the rest?
LMT Tools has been focussing in niche areas and offering technologically superior solutions. We believe in innovation and have come up with many unique products to meet customer requirements.
For example, Copy Max for die mould milling, Speed Core hobs for gear-cutting, ChamferCut tools for deburring of gears, CTline rolling systems for mass production, indexable taps for thread cutting & thread forming, wear compensating tools for line boring, cylinder boring etc.
You have been steadily increasing the strength of your Chakan plant with additional products and newer assembly lines. What are the latest developments?
We have recently begun production of round-tools at our Chakan plant. We have increased our existing production capacity of gear hobs to cater to the increasing domestic and export demand.
What are some of the recent innovations to emerge from your R&D stable for the India market and what has the response to these been like?
We have worked on two areas. When it comes to carbide technology, we have been working closely with our carbide suppliers to ensure that the latest substrates are provided to us depending on the application, like steel, cast iron, stainless steel or exotic materials. For example, with respect to the aerospace industry, we have come up with the latest generation materials, and also have our in-house PVD coating R&D team in place to constantly work towards new ranges of coatings that can then be brought in, such as nano-mould, nano-sphere etc. Today, PVD coating is not enough on its own. We have also developed substantial technology from a manufacturing perspective, especially with respect to cutting-edge preparation and de-burring and a host of other areas, thereby ensuring that the advancements we make both in the substrate and the coating are translated and easily brought on to the material. If one visits our plant in Pune or anywhere in the world, you will get to see these specific advancements that have been made in the manufacturing technology, thereby supporting our claim of substantial benefit with respect to the product when it reaches the customer.
LMT has been focussing in niche areas and offering technologically superior solutions.
Sustaining customer relationships over time is vital for any business. What is the process you deploy to collaborate with your customers in order to deliver greater value to them?
We have set up a centre of competence in India, formed with a matrix structure of sales and product specialists. With this, we aim to ensure the right blend throughout the sales process. The sales engineers or sales teams are well-qualified to identify the opportunities and the likely pain points that the customer is facing, following which the specialists from our centre of competence would quickly step in to give the right solution and, therefore, ensure that the customer is able to see the benefits of the features that we have – both from the knowledge and the product standpoint. Using this approach, we have been able to deliver greater value to our customer.
LMT’s CopyMax2.
Given the unending focus on quality in your line of business, what are some of the ways in which LMT ensures that quality is maintained through all its processes?
We are committed to quality right from the top management to the bottom of the line. For this purpose, we use defined process parameters for every operation and follow a self-inspection practice at every stage of manufacturing. We periodically provide skill upgradation and quality awareness training to our employees.
Finally, what is LMT’s growth strategy in India for the next five years?
We have definite investment plans for capacity expansion and addition of new product lines in our local manufacturing portfolio, which are presently sourced from our mother plants in Europe. We have already started solid carbide shank tools production at the beginning of this year.