Capacity Ahead Of Demand Is Going To Be The Driving Factor For Growth: General Machine Tools
General Machine Tools (GMT) is an engineering conglomerate established in 1990 having an experience of more than two decades in the industry and boasts of a highly qualified staff. The main motto of the firm is "To do right, first time, every time". GMT has been successfully handling high volume components to peak production levels. Presently, the company is supplying cam follower lever assemblies, rocker levers, gear case cover and precision fuel injection systems to clients like Cummins, Kirloskar, MAN trucks, GE, JCB, Gardner Denver and Colfax.
Components Manufacturing
Initially, GMT was focused on machine tool building at a small level, where they catered SPM’s to domestic and local customers. It was around the year 2000-2001 when they got the opportunity to work with Cummins, and since then, they have added many new domestic as well as overseas customers. At first, they had a conventional manufacturing setup, so it was crucial to buy a turning centre at that point in time, but it was also a challenge to invest rupees 15 lakhs on a turning centre, as it was a big amount for them. However, despite the challenge, they bought the first machine. Immediately after the purchase, they started getting inquiries for work, and within three months the machine was completely booked for jobs, and they were forced to buy a second turning centre.
“I remember, we were in Pune, having coffee with Mr Agte, VP – Business Development & IBD, BFW, and we were discussing with him about a machine, which would be both suitable and cost-effective for our business, as the cost of the machine was the deciding factor. Mr Agte suggested that we should buy the machine named Akshara.” Said, Mr Suhas Prabhakar Deshpande, Director, General Machine Tools Pvt. Ltd.
They bought Akshara in 2006, as it was best suited to our needs of manufacturing special parts, where high accuracy played an important role. Since they performed only one or two operations, ATC was not a priority, and the cost of the ATC was also a deciding factor for purchase at that time.
One thing that GMT have learned over the last twenty-five years is that opportunities are always there, you need to ensure that you have the capacity to meet the future demand. They follow this business practice very diligently, according to the company, unless you have enough capacity, especially in a country like India, which has an excellent business potential, you can’t grow. Currently, the company exports 20% of the products and their plan is to increase that share of business up to 30%.”
Technical Benchmark
Earlier, they bought machines keeping in mind the requirement and after looking at the machine drawings, its accuracy and its specification. Nowadays, they buy machines keeping the focus on their business policy and strategy. They buy machines which can perform multitasking activities as they want to enter into different areas of the industry. The company has moved from the conventional buying pattern to a newer buying pattern, where they buy the machine first and then look for manufacturing jobs. They are now planning to buy a five-axis machine even though they don’t have any machining job with them, at this time.
Further elaborating about the accuracies of BFW machines, Mr Deshpande said, “We cater to different segments of the industry. Currently, we are supplying parts for diesel engines, to compressor divisions, and automobile industry. We provide them different components where some are critical components that require +- 5 microns tolerances for centre distances and standard components which require +- 15 microns tolerances. It depends upon the part being manufactured, and one of the parts we manufacture has the closest part accuracy of +- 5 microns. These components weigh 30-50 kg, and some special parts weigh 150-200 kg.”
Apart from the conventional line, they have around 20+ Vertical Machining Centres, 5 Horizontal Machining Centres, 3 Turn Mill Centres and 3 VTL’s. On the quality front, they have 2 CMM’s in which one is a manual CMM and other is a CNC CMM with a continuous scanning probe. GMT also has an in-house quality testing facility.” He added.
After - Sales Support
He commented, “I got the opportunity to meet the top management of BFW many times, during exhibitions or when we visited the BFW plant. They are always very keen to understand customer expectations. In fact, I got the chance to discuss these things with Mr Kothari, CEO, BFW.
Initially, GMT found some lag in BFW service. It was not regarding the quality of service but was concerning AMC’s. Over the last two years, the company is aggressively focusing on that aspect of service, and now, all of the machines in GMT have AMC. The service team of BFW is now giving fantastic results and ensuring that the downtime of the machine is further reduced so that even the MTBF has reduced significantly.
The performance of the machines is so good that there are minimal failures. The service team maintains excellent communication with maintenance team, and they make sure that the machines are well maintained. Overall, GMT is quite satisfied with the service provided by BFW servicing team. Usually, the machines are attended too, within four hours. This is quite outstanding, as the company is located in a rural area far away from the city, and the service engineer has to travel around 35-40 Kms to reach their location.
Satisfactory Results
The company believes, BFW is a stronger and better brand. Whenever you want to buy a machine keeping in mind its strength and longevity, BFW has the upper hand as compared to most of the Indian machine tool manufacturers. GMT has worked very closely with the BFW team, over the last 10 -12 years. They have also bought their first pallet changer machine named Gaurav, which is a linear pallet machine. They are also in continuous touch with their design team who are very supportive, and they have tested many of their products. In GMT they verify the machine to see if it matches the specifications. In almost all the scenarios, the performance what was specified has been met satisfactorily. Only in one or two cases, they identified certain areas of improvement and the design team has reciprocated very well to their suggestions.”
With regards to the quality, cost, and delivery, BFW machines are an excellent choice. In addition to the service support, Mr Deshpande added, "To do right first time and every time is our policy and that is what we always target, which is to achieve 100 percent on-time delivery. Quality, cost, and delivery are the three fundamental requirements of any customer, so we keep these as a priority, ensuring that we deliver excellent quality parts, on time and at a right price."
Partners in growth
Every machine tool contributes to the growth of the organisation. All the machines that the company have bought from BFW are multitasking machines such as VTM's, pallet changer machines etc. While performing multitasking jobs, the cost per component is critical and the machine hour rates have to be better. BFW machines have helped them to reduce the time needed to develop a quality part considerably. They have significantly contributed to the growth of their organisation. After looking at the performance of the machines, overall service support and considering the total cost of ownership, BFW is an excellent choice.
“GMT has created a goodwill amongst all its customers, by supplying components in time, coupled with assured quality. The quality objective of our company is "to achieve 100% on-time delivery”. Capacity ahead of demand is going to be the future for the organisation. To achieve this, whenever we plan to buy a multitasking machine, BFW will be our top priority.” He concluded.