Govt should clear air on TUF Scheme soon

In an interview with the ITJ team, Hardik Shah, Director – Marketing, Embee India, provides a SWOT analysis on the Indian textile industry, and the wish-list for the government.

What do you think in the state of our textile machinery, parts & accessories industry – a SWOT analysis.
The textile industry is growing at a strong healthy pace in India and so is the machinery manufacturing sector. Advanced automation techniques are the need of this sector for consistent quality products. Gone are the days when customer just used to look at price of even small spare parts. Any spare part that is directly associated with the main machines productivity output cannot be substandard. Challenges have been increasing as well with regards to textile industry´s compulsion and inclination towards going cleaner, greener industrialisation by means of its approach towards zero discharge.

This creates opportunities for machine manufacturer though with huge challenges. The demand for good quality fabrics has also been increasing very rapidly within the youths ´in-style fashion sense´ changing at a pace faster than ever before.

Strengths: India is a hugely diverse and self valiant textile industry, with great youth talent and faster technology availability.

Weakness- Lack of quality standardisation and unavailability of quality check method for the procurement department.

Opportunities: Good consistent quality products, and cost saving innovations, product enhancing initiatives. The industry has a very high quality rotary printing for blade/ permanent magnet system, and a very economical way of printing 1 or 2 colours on fabrics. It has scant/stole printing on rotary machine for up to 2.5 m.

Threats: Look and feel of products are an important aspect where India lacks significantly as compared to China´s cheap products, though Indian products are way better and more productive with greater return on investment (ROI) and long life. There is no progress in digital printing in India, which is a major threat for Indian machine manufacturing industry.

What are your company´s contribution to the textile industry? And what are the plans for the future?
Embee is focused on rotary printing industry. More focus on:
1.High speed rotary printing at 150 m/min
2.High accuracy (universal for all fabric) printing machine with both combinational (blade & permanent magnet system)
3. Stole/scaft printing on rotary with up to 2.5 m repeats
4. Colour cost reducing, colour kitchen machinery (save 5-10 per cent colour costs)
5. Water conservation for washing of colour drums, screens & squeezes while decreasing downtime & thus enhanced productivity. (Downtime due to matching change has been reduced from 6-8 hours/day to 2-3 hours/day effectively)
6. Energy monitoring & analysis & optimising production and maintenance

How has your company been faring in the export markets for your machinery? And what are your expectations at ITMA?
Embee´s YoY import has grown from Rs 10 crore to 12 crore. The company has been aggressively following an export market, developing newer business relations for mutual benefit through our timely better quality products. At ITMA, our main focus is on rotary printing machine for woven/knitted fabrics with combinational blade & permanent magnet system, and cost reducing & colour saving colour kitchen. Our focus is also on energy, water conserving & enhancing productivity with Embee washers; energy optimisation in production schedule by constant monitoring & analysis with<