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INDIA
or tools etc.
Unipatch continues to promote ‘mushroom patches’ for the tubeless radial, which is expensive compared to the strings largely being used by vulcanisers in India. The mushroom patch is five times costlier over the popular string. “The mushroom patch is being promoted as a more permanent solution for tyre puncture repairs compared to string. Demand has started picking-up with increasing awareness,” Kunal said. The company registered growth of around 20 per cent in the domestic and export business in the last year
and is expected to maintain the same momentum in the ongoing financial year.
Unipatch Rubber Ltd. was established in 1983 as a Joint- Venture between Khemka’s, New Delhi (India) and Tech International Inc, Ohio (USA), a global leader in tyre and tube repairs. It markets a range of products like patches, solvents and adhesives, retreading materials, tools and accessories through a network of over 350 distributors and 6000 dealers spread all over the country.
Joseph Raj, CEO, JM Tyre Marc
company is also working on the introduction of a doorstep delivery service.
It is also doubling the existing vendor base from the current 25 by adding another 25 in the next year. “Currently, our focus is on the tyre repair and service segment and in the future on Tyre Management
System (TMS),” he revealed. Currently, a customised TMS is under development and it is being designed for the requirements of the Indian transport sector.
JM is also working on a new type of OTR tyre spotter for size 35/45 and is likely to launch in the domestic market in the next few months.
KMT Orders Down
Unipatch Focusing
on Skill Development
The Indian government went into overdrive by introducing demonetisation in 2016 and later implementing Goods & Services Tax (GST) to bring fiscal discipline in the country’s financial system in 2017. It may have its positive side but there is a sizable section of the industry impacted badly by these fiscal reforms coming in quick succession.
“We have been hit hard by demonetization and GST as our orders plummeted by as much as 30 per cent in the last two fiscals 2016- 17 & 2017-18,” stated Kuldeep Kumar of KMT Retreading Industries.
The key retread
machinery
manufacturer in
district of Jind in
the North Indian
state of Haryana.
On an average the
company supplies
one plant each
month and
annually about 12
to 15 plants. KMT
supplies plants
largely to the
domestic market
with few to the
adjoining countries
of Nepal and
Bhutan.
Besides, troubles
from fiscal woes,
the industry
continuse to face a
shortage of trained
manpower. “The
government should
introduce training programmes in state-owned technical institutes to create a trained workforce for the retreading sector. The industry continues to cope with a paucity of trained technical manpower,” Kumar pointed out.
According to him, the glut in the market will continue till end of the ongoing fiscal. Normalcy is likely to be restored by the end of the
following year.
The ongoing scenario may not be positive but KMT is looking ahead to better times. “Commercial vehicles sales continue to maintain a positive trend, besides the government is also investing in repairing the existing road network and building new highways and that has a direct impact on the future outlook of the retreading industry,” he thinks. Despite a shortage of orders, KMT continues to focus on innovation and has developed an OTR tyre buffer and builder for JCB and tractor rear tyres. “We delivered a new set of machines to a plant in Pune recently.”
Whilst the Indian commercial vehicle tyre segment is fast adopting radial tyres, the patch makers are grappling with a lack of a trained work force on the ground to service the evolving tyre segment. One of the prominent patch-makers, Delhi headquartered Unipatch Rubber Limited, opted to invest into capacity building in terms of skill development.
“Unless there is a skilled manpower on the ground to repair tubeless radials, the right product would neither be offered nor applied properly,” believes Kunal Chaudhry, Sr General Manager (Exports & Strategic Planning), Unipatch Rubber Limited.
The company started a unique drive, partnered with Bridgestone, in order to create a network of 200 outlets all over the country where a trained workforce is available to service tubeless radials. “We trained 500 vulcanisers from 200 outlets from
last November to March this year. The idea has gone down well in the industry as the tyre service sector always struggles with the issue of a trained workforce,” he thinks.
After the positive feedback from the market, Unipatch plans to roll-out the second training programme soon. It plans to organise it on a larger scale, roping in 500 outlets and targeting 700-800 vulcanisers. “The objective is to shed the unorganised tag from the service sector and bring more vulcanisers into an organised ambit that has access to training programmes,” he emphasised. The cooperation with Bridgestone started in the middle of 2017.
Interestingly, Unipatch plans to expand its training horizon to add more people in the tyre servicing sector. “We need to improve the level of skill by adding vulcanisers from the 2-wheeler and passenger car segment as our focus is to build an
organised tyre repair workforce. We are currently working at very basic levels, as unless these people are properly trained even the best of the product fails.”
The company has no plans to open any outlets but is focusing on the process during onsite training modules, which explain about tyre repairs, safety, hygiene, use of right equipment
Kuldeep Kumar of KMT Retreading Industries
Kunal Chaudhry, Sr General Manager (Exports & Strategic Planning), Unipatch Rubber Limited
KMT entered the retread equipment market in 1995, manufacturing a range of machinery like inspection spreaders, repair spreaders, envelop expanders, tyre buffers, tyre builders, cold curing chambers from 3 to 11 tyre, monorail system etc.
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