With employment generation acquiring a sense of urgency, there is a general shift in attention towards Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMES), that contributes nearly a third to the country’s GDP, to play a significant role in tackling the issue. It is only natural that an Rs8000-crore cutting tool industry, that is to a large part dominated by the medium and small-scale industry, would seek its small but important space in the endeavour.
Also, the industry in India is a healthy combination of large multinational firms well supported by a big cluster of indigenous MSME manufacturers. Together they are pitching in.
‘Make in India’ and ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’, the clarion call made by the Prime Minister aimed at encouraging indigenous enterprises and self-reliance would naturally draw spontaneous response from the cutting tool industry. At the same time, it also stands to be a beneficiary of the overall industrial growth of the domestic enterprises following the call.
“Many indigenous companies have really helped India to take a big leap in the campaigns like ʹMake in Indiaʹ and ʹAatmanirbhar Bharatʹ. These initiatives have become the key drivers of increasing demand in machine tools business,” says Prashant Sardeshmukh, MD, MMC Hardmetal India Pvt Ltd., a Mitsubishi subsidiary.
L Krishnan, MD, TaeguTec India, a South Korea headquartered company says, “In the times to come, we can hope to witness greater indigenous production of state-of-the-art and high-performance equipment & machines.”
UK based Dormer Pramet, a global manufacturer and supplier of cutting tools, is looking to enhance its position as a leading global supplier of HSS solid round tools leveraging its acquired capacity Miranda Tools, in Ankleshwaria, Gujarat.
SIZING UP
Looking to play its rightful place in nation building, the cutting tool industry is gearing up to the numerous challenges thrown at it by the industry’s substantive dependency on imports, advent of new technologies like 3D printing, advancement of aerospace industry and growing adoption of e-vehicles besides the general afflictions like the pandemic or the temporary decline in the automotive and component industry.
TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
While the industry was gearing up to reciprocate to the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ call, the pandemic struck. However, after just a shot languor, the industry quickly took hold of itself and began opening itself to technology adoption and to innovative solutions to beat the challenge.
“Earlier, we had begun a series of activities to improve our digital offer to customers, partners and employees. The global pandemic has obviously speeded-up that process and reinforced the need to work in a smarter way,” says Prashant Patkar, Interim Sales Manager, Dormer Pramet India.
“The pandemic and resultant disruption has given the momentum to adoption of digital technology. Companies are now investing their resources and time to digitize their processes,” concurs Sardeshmukh. “Internet of Things (IoT) Integration, connectivity, computational power and analysis are among the main trends in respect of digitization,” he elaborates.
Conducting meetings with customers and holding trainings of engineers and technical specialists through webinar, attending virtual industrial exhibitions, leveraging internet usage for helping solve issues at the shop floor by connecting to remote experts are only some of the early technology adoptions widely accepted by the industry. Individual companies found their own ways of leveraging digitisation and IoT.
Patkar at Dormer Pramet informs, “We recently updated our machining calculator App for both Google Play and the App. The calculator provides engineers and CNC operators with relevant cutting data for various turning, drilling, threading and milling applications. It’s easy-to-use interface analyses machining time, torque, power, cutting effort, removal rate and chip thickness, based on the material and operation performed.”
“We are a hi-tech company and are progressively upgrading technology proactively in terms of automation and digitisation of our operations. These have helped us to overcome the disruptions caused due to the pandemic internally,” says Krishnan that re-iterates how digitisation and technology adoptions are finding ready acceptance in the cutting tool industry.
INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
The industry is in continual search for ways to respond to the challenges. Customized solution specific to a company or specific to an application is a constant endevour.
“We initiated a new product launch to offer application specific tooling to the industry in order to offer improved performance and overall cost benefits,” says Patkar.
“Custom-made service of specials can also be an option, helping to reduce machine time and make the whole process more effective. Special tools are designed, developed and produced at our dedicated production units, with recommended coating and grade choice,” he elaborates.
Taegu Tec has taken to periodically introduce new and innovative ideas to improve productivity in the shop floor. Their latest product launch, under the umbrella of SFEEDTEC, is said to highly complement Industry 4.0. According to industry sources, SFEEDTEC products have been helping customers significantly improve productivity and reduce costs since its launch in 2019.
“We are a hi-tech company and are progressively upgrading technology proactively in terms of automation and digitisation of our operations,” says Taegu Tec’s Krishnan.
MMC Hardmetal India is offering reduction of vibration in internal turning operations with the help of capable sensors and mobile app for better monitoring of machining operations. Taegu Tec is offering tooling systems for CNC machines as standard and tailor-made versions.
CHALLENGES AHEAD
While the industry prepares for a larger role for itself, it is wisely taking stock of the challenges lying ahead.
Admittedly, dependence on imports, is one of the perennial problem facing the industry.
“Due to reasons of economics, all varieties of cutting tools are not produced locally; you could say we still have about 30-40% dependence on imports by value,” admits Krishnan candidly.
Though industry experts like Sardeshmukh believe that the dependency on imports have actually gone down in terms of value of cutting tool, he concedes that in a large number of sectors, India has not been able to shrug off its dependency on imports. “Imported cutting tools are used in the sectors such as automotive, medical, energy, aerospace and most importantly for difficult-to-cut material machining,” he says. He alludes it to the multinationals adopting the ‘one product one location’ policy.
While on pandemic, the dominant challenges the industry faced according to Krishnan was the availability of man power and the rapidly changing demand levels with virtually no lead time to adjust.
“We had a great run from, say, October 2020 to April 2021. However, the second wave of the pandemic caused major demand disruption. We saw a significant drop in demand in May, June,” affirms the TaeguTec managing director.
Slump in the automotive and component industry following the pandemic is another test the industry has to see itself through. Conventional wisdom suggest that automotive and component industries have always been among the leading consumers of cutting tools. Any disruption in these industries has a cascading effect on cutting tools.
“Automotive and component industries offer one of the highest potentials for cutting tools. Most of the players have domestic manufacturing set ups, which drives the consumption,” says Patkar, whose company Dormer Pramet India, makes indexable and round tools that are suitable for die and mould application, an important segment to the automotive and component industries.
Another uncertainty staring at the industry is that brought about by the advent of electric vehicle which will totally obliterate car parts like pistons, valves, exhaust system and crankshafts. Manufacturers dependent on machining Internal combustion engine (ICE) are facing the unpredictability.
The aerospace industry is not only a driving force in development taking place in cutting industry but also its largest consumer. Disruption in the airline industry and increasingly and extremely rigorous specifications is a challenge for cutting tool industry.
3D printing is another of the technology advancement that the industry is striving to respond to. This additive manufacturing is considered in some quarter to be a challenge to the subtractive manufacturing (i.e., machining), though it is not turning out to be as big a threat as was thought to be but rather complimenting.
The industry, while being very proactive in responding to the needs of the time, is also cognizant of the challenges ahead and preparing for long haul. According to industry sources, industry associations are already talking about according cutting tool industry the status of strategic industry and utilise its efforts in nation building.
GEARING UP
India, standing 10th in the manufacture of machine tools and 8th in consumption, has the segment catering to every other industry and plays a crucial role in India’s business ecosystem. We have a slew of companies manufacturing cutting tools indigenously.
According to Krishnan, the Indian market is certainly growing, but still has a long way to go before catching up with markets like Korea, Japan, Germany, US and not to mention China.
“However, that is certain to change in the times to come,” says Krishnan.