Indian Aluminium Co Ltd (Indal) has completed a Rs 35-crore upgrade plan
at its Belur sheet plant in West Bengal and touched the Rs 100-crore mark
in its investments in Belur in the last decade.
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The major outcome of the modernisation programme in Belur was the commissioning of its new state-of-the-art re-melting facility and complete restructuring of the workforce and work practices.
The extensive upgradation exercise at the Belur sheet mill was based on a detailed technological study, undertaken by Alcan's experts in aluminium rolling. The re-melting facility at the Taloja sheet mill in Maharashtra is undergoing a similar programme.
"The programme was part of the company's overall strategy to enhance its competitive edge to face the ever-increasing competition in the downstream semi-fabricated product segments of sheet and foil," Indal officials said.
The re-melting facility at Belur was inaugurated on February 11, 2000 by Indal chairman and CEO Chris Bark-Jones, who was accompanied by managing director, operations, N K Choudhary.
According to Indal officials, apart from the re-melting facility, salient features of Belur upgrade are the SMS mill coil preparation station to improve coil turnaround time and enhance mill productivity, a new slitting line for thinner gauge sheets, a partial annealing furnace of finstock and surface critical sheets.
Indal is aiming at improving its market share in chosen products such as closure stock, litho stock, fin stock, foil for pharmaceutical strips, cable wrap and
other high value-added converted foil products used for packaging of processed foods.
"The demand is only just beginning to pick up and strong competitors, particularly, from among the major primary producers are fast catching up," officials added.
Along with the technological changes, the company has restructured and reoriented the work practices at this 60-year-old plant. "Several outdated work practices have given way to flexible working norms. Training programmes were undertaken to bring in higher skill levels to handle sophisticated equipment with the concept of multi-skilling," they said.
Indal lost 240 employees in its Belur plant when it had offered its VRS programme last year. Currently, there are 900 employees at the plant.