Gujarat-based ABN Industries is a manufacturer of textile weaving machinery spare parts for shuttleless looms. It provides rapier drive wheels for textile weaving machinery. The company participated at the recent GTTES event in Mumbai in which the company displayed its wide range of drive wheels for the textile industry.
When ITJ´s Senior Sub Editor Karthik Muthuveeran met Namita Singh, Proprietor, ABN Industries, during the exhibition, she spoke at length about the market for drive wheels in India and the competition her company faces from Chinese manufacturers. She stressed with a tinge of pride that ABN Industries is the only manufacturer of drive wheels in India.
Excerpts…
Karthik Muthuveeran (KM): Take us through the beginnings of ABN Industries.
Namita Singh (NS): Before getting into manufacturing of drive wheels, DMTC/ABN Industries used to do trading for more than 10 years. We started manufacturing drive wheels in the last two years. Drive wheels are a small part in Rapier looms.
In India, there is a very high demand for drive wheels but it is not available everywhere. Companies are forced to import these products from China. It becomes extremely costlier for the companies to import these products. We thought that companies in India should buy the product from here itself and get saved on cost and other taxes. It is the only part that no company manufactures in India. We worked out a plan and did thorough research of the market before starting to manufacture drive wheels.
Till date, we are the only manufacturer in India who manufactures drive wheels.
KM: How is the market for drive wheels in India?
NS: India is an extremely good market for drive wheels. There are many loom manufacturers in India who require drive wheels for their textile machines. At ABN Industries, we provide rapier drive wheels of all types including Picanol GTM, GTX, GAMMA, and as per the requirement of wheels. The company also provides guide hook for all range of Picanol GTM, GTX, GAMMA, GAMMA SET, LEONARDO, THEMA, VAMATEX P-1001, VAMATEX -P 1001-HOLE type.
KM: Who are your major customers in India and abroad?
NS: Our main customer is based in Ichalkaranji in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. We also supply our products to Bhiwandi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Coimbtore, Erode, Palladam, Indore, Devas, Bhilwara, Kolkata, Delhi, Panipat, Ludhiyana, Amritsar, & all over India. In South, we are providing our products to two major clients. Apart from these, we have many clients throughout India. In this GTTES exhibition, we have met many customers who don´t even know that drive wheels are manufactured in India also.
At present, we do not export to any countries. In future, tough, we plan to expand our footprint.
KM: Any company has to face some set of challenges before cementing its place as a leading player. Did you face challenges as well?
NS: Yes, of course. We did receive many rejections before. Customers used to remove faults in our products and used to compare our products to Chinese ones. Comparison was done on quality, costing, and many other factors. But now we have worked out on all these difficulties, and people have started trusting our products. The market for drive wheels are increasing day by day.
KM: What differentiates your products from the Chinese products that are available in the market?
NS: There is not much difference in the product that is offered by us and Chinese ones. Only differentiating factor is the price range. ABN Industries is offering the same product at a lesser rate as compared to China. In addition to this, we are manufacturing a product that is not available in any<