AMADA, the $2 billion Japanese machine tools major, is mulling over the plan to set up a manufacturing facility in India to produce sheet metal processing and laser cutting machines among others in the next five years.
“We have been selling a wide range of machines in India over the last decade and growing at over 10 per cent annually. To begin with, we are setting up a technical centre at Aerospace SEZ near international airport in Bangalore at an investment of $13 million to train our employees and customers on our machines. In the second phase we would look at setting up a manufacturing unit here,” Toshio Takagi, senior managing director, AMADA Co Ltd said.
The company manufactures a wide range of metalworking machinery such as sheet metal processing, laser cutting machines, bending machines, combination machines, punching machines, stamping press processing, metal cutting and machine tool processing among others. Presently, it is importing machines from Japan and marketing in India.
AMADA is exhibiting its products and services at IMTEX Forming exhibition. The manufacturing plant would require an investment of $30 million, he said.
“Typically, an independent manufacturing facility requires highly skilled workforce and there are some limitations on this front in India at this moment. So, at this stage, we are concentrating on setting up our technical centre, which will have trained engineers from Japan to impart skills to our Indian employees and customers. We would firm up plans to set up a production plant within the next five years,” Takagi told Business Standard.
Takagi also said that the company is selling Rs 250 crore worth of products in India and aims to grow it rapidly in the years to come. It is also in the process of shifting its India headquarters from Mumbai to Bangalore, which is closer to majority of its customers. It is also planning to ramp up its headcount at its software development centre in Chennai from the current 140 engineers, he added.
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AMADA is currently serving a wide spectrum of Indian manufacturing sector that includes L&T, Ashok Leyland, BEL, BHEL, Caterpillar, Telcon, Otis elevators, Kone, Voltas and Blue Star among others. It has 800 customers in India and sells around 150 machines annually.
The proposed technical centre in Bangalore will support other aerospace companies coming up at the SEZ. It will have about 100 engineers at this centre, which will be operational by 2014.
The Karnataka government has allotted 8 acres land at Aerospace SEZ near international airport to upgrade the group’s global solutions centre and set up technical and vocational training centre. It will also have a parts centre to cater to the growing requirements of its customers in India.