Orders aplenty, but no men to execute them

TRENDS: The machine tools industry finds its growth plans stymied by shortages of talent.

Even as India emerges as a machine tool export hub, the industry faces an unprecedented shortage of qualified engineers at the higher level and shop floor employees at the lower end.

With the IT sector finding engineers from disciplines other than software as alternate fits, manufacturers of machine tools, already facing a crunch, could well see worse days.

The machine tool sector has no dearth of orders and prides itself on having the USP of 'German quality machines at Chinese prices', but is unable to attract talent. It is not strong on HR policies and, unlike the IT industry, is unable to pay high salaries.

That's why it has failed to attract and retain talent, explains B S Murthy, CEO of Human Capital, a Bangalore-based recruitment firm. Attrition is a high 35 per cent. The auto sector, which gave it a shot in the arm, is itself in the throes of a manpower shortage.

In the late 'nineties and the early years of this century the machine tools industry did not take off as planned. This scuppered its chances of attracting the right people, says Sangeetha Lala, Vice-President, Teamlease Contract Services.

"Many ITI graduates do not want to be in the machine tool industry," she says. The industry nevertheless hopes for a CAGR of 35 per cent till 2015. The goals it has set are to become a global player and an aggressive exporter.

To overcome the shortage of skilled workers, new initiatives have been launched by companies such as Ace Micromatic Group (AMG) and Kennametal India Ltd (KIL).

AMG set up a technology centre at Pune three years ago and is in the process of opening similar centres at Gurgaon, Bangalore and Chennai.

Apart from providing a first-hand experience of the company's products to customers, these tech centres are now engaged in imparting industry training to job seekers. The company has been picking up school and college dropouts and training them.

"We provide hands-on training for eight weeks in geometry, arithmetic and other subjects, and absorb the best of them in our factories," says Shrinivas G Shirgurkar, managing director of AMG.

It intends to roll out the training programme across the country in a phased manner. It has already invested over Rs 1 crore on it and the first batch of 16 candidates has been trained.

KIL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of $2.3 billion US-based Kennametal Inc, is also hamstrung by manpower shortages.

Says managing director Kumar Kanetkar: "We have created two divisions for high-end and low-end work due to a shortage of qualified engineers. We have retrained our engineers for high-end work and are now outsourcing a large part of the low-end work to contract manufacturers."

The company also invests in fresh graduate trainees and trains them for 24 months.