Minimax to invest Rs 5 cr in aluminium mould unit

Minimax Engineers, a small-scale machine design company, is planning to install an aluminium mould factory for shoe soles. The project is likely to cost about Rs 5 crore.

Vinod K Dhawan, the promoter-owner of the unit, told Business Standard, "The proposed unit would be a high-tech one and looking at the designs involved, we need to have latest technology. Thus, we are trying to have collaboration with an Italian or a Chinese firm. The form of collaboration is open at the moment. It can be just a technical collaboration, a techno-financial collaboration, or only sales of drawings."

The unit will start production in September or October this year. Initially, the production would be of about Rs 2 crore but gradually it would go up to Rs 4 crore at full capacity utilisation, Dhawan said.

He added that the continuing technological upgrade in the leather industry had led to new materials replacing old ones. Till now moulds were made of wood. But these were found unsatisfactory. The growing strength of footwear units in Kanpur and their increasing exports had created high demand for this product. The location was ideal as the proposed site for the factory is opposite the Mirza Tanners unit on the Kanpur-Unnao Road, he said.

The money may be raised through a private placement of shares. The promoter's contribution and that of banks is still being worked out. All these would be finalised in two months, Dhawan informed.

Each mould will cost Rs.40,000 and each series will have the capacity of about 200,000 moulds of various sizes.

When asked, Dhawan said each sole had a different design. Rubber and PVC material was poured into the mould for it to take the desired shape.

Minimax was first noticed by the public when it was selected by the director of IIT-Kanpur for making metal parts of saddletree which was developed by the institute in collaboration with the leather industry of the city. The tree is made by Netplast m a local plastic unit and the these are completed by Minimax. It has a turnover of Rs 3,500,000 from this line of business.

The company has also been involved in defence work from 1983to 1997. During this time it was involved in making chemical fillers for three missile systems and for the guns of various sizes, including Bofors, 105 mm and125 mm.

However, in 1997, the defence shifted their purchases to rate contract rather then central purchase systems.

The same year Dhawan shifted to doing machining work for LML. Where for the first three years the earnings were about Rs 8,000,000 per annum and for the next three it plummeted to about Rs4,000,000. It was at this time that he thought of diversification .

Various leather companies made suggestions, and ultimately Dhawan decided to get into products related to footwear, as he found out that the saddlery component market is already quite crowded. And in footwear the scope looks much brighter, to Dhawan.

Minimax never had high turnover, because "we have already made tough design based products and these, by their nature , are required in limited numbers. Only mass production will give us the volume and higher turnover, and we have never done that. Thus despite all efforts minimax turnover has hovered between Rs 1 crore Rs 2 crore. But with new diversification into moulds the rubicon will be crossed as the turnover is set to increase based on mass production.