Customer Support is Very Crucial for The Success: Padmavati Group

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2018-04-10 18:35:00

Padmavati Group is an engineering conglomerate established in 1983, having a rich experience of over a decade in the manufacturing industry. Initially, the company started with a modest set of equipment and gradually expanded with one lathe machine in a small workshop. Now, it has transformed its business and has a forge shop, machining setup, heat treatment shop, foundry and various other facilities.

Presently, Padmavati Group is catering to clients like Ashok Leyland, Emerson Climate Technologies, Takem Sai products, JMI, Friction Tech, John Deere, Force Motors, and Man Motors.

Components Manufacturing

Even though the company had a small setup in the initial years, in the year 1992, after taking into consideration the suggestions of its customers, they opened their forge shop with a single hammer and started exporting the manufactured parts to Takem Sai Products in the USA. In the year 1993, they expanded the business and started their machining setup with a machine shop and introduced crankshaft machining and cylinder head machining.

In the year 1996, upon suggestion from their customers’, Padmavati group started a heat treatment shop that had all the basic facilities, including case carbonising and aneling. Due to increased workloads, in the year 2001, the company invested in an additional facility. After the expansion, Emersion Climate Technologies supported Padmavati Group and purchased more than 50 full crankshafts from them, and for almost a decade Padmavati Group was the solitary supplier to Emerson for crankshafts. From the year 2012, the company started their foundry and now produce 1500 tonnes of casting, in-house. Earlier the company outsourced its casting requirements.

Right now, the company is producing brake drums which are their highest selling product. Earlier, machining for manufacturing brake drums was outsourced to their vendors, but after receiving a heavy demand for the product, the company decided to form a new job shop named Padmavati technologies, to manufacture brake drums in-house. They decided to buy a CNC machine for machining of brake drums, which is how they got associated with BFW machine tools, Bangalore, and bought their first BFW machine.

“The growth and the success of Padmavati group are because of the support of its valuable customers.” Mr Pradyumn Patil, Director of Padmavati Group Said.

Technical Benchmark

The company has around 110 sets of machines, in that 50 are SPMs’, and the rest 50 are normal CNC machines which include VTLs’ and VMCs’. Their inspection facilities consist of  all the basic inspection equipment that include CMMs’, surface testers, gauges and various measuring instruments. The company is fully equipped with all the basic facilities for inspection and machining processes; nearly all the processes such as grinding, turning, and broaching etc. are done in-house.

Talking about the machining accuracies, Mr Pradyumn Patil, Director of Padmavati Group, said, “We manufacture a wide range of components, some require close tolerance machining, and some require their diameter to be maintained up to 4 to 5 microns. We also have a special grinding machine that manufactures components that require accuracies of 20 - 30 microns. We manufacture components like brake drums, which require accuracies of 50-60 microns.  Accuracy is not a concern for us as we have experience of more than a decade in machining various components.”

After - Sales Support

Mr Patil, said, “The application engineer helped us a lot, and we received excellent support from them regarding service and after-sales. After sales support is a very crucial area for any organisation, and we are really happy with BFW. The response from the service head at Kolhapur is prompt, and our problem gets resolved in just one call.”

The company appreciates the technical knowledge and expertise demonstrated by the BFW team, to resolve any issues related to the machines. The director, Mr Patil, feels that the service engineers are a part of Padmavati Group rather than that of BFW.

Satisfactory Results

Since 2001, Padmavati Group was aware of BFW as a brand that manufactures quality machinery and wanted to purchase a VMC from them. Initially, they booked 6 BFW machines, but as the business expanded, in the year 2016, they purchased 12 machines from BFW, which included 3 VTLs and 9 VMCs.

“Right from the first day, we were very impressed with the technical specification of the machines and the expertise of the Sales Staff of BFW. As a result, within a day, we made the decision to buy six machines from them.” said, Mr Patil.

The decision of buying machines from BFW was finalised after we received feedback from other machine shop owners, who also had purchased BFW machines. According to them, BFW machines are outstanding in terms of accuracy, reliability and robustness. These factors were influential in motivating Padmavati group to buy BFW machines.

“Initially, many from our team were sceptical, with regards to the ability of BFW VTL machines to manufacture quality brake drums. My father was very pragmatic and convinced the entire team to manufacture on BFW machines, as it was financially viable as compared to an imported VTL machine. BFW supported us every step of the way, and we were able to manufacture excellent quality brake drums that were appreciated by our customers.” said, Mr Patil.

Partners in growth

The main moto of Padmavati Group is to serve their valued customers with excellent machining quality and with on-time delivery. Currently, the company is catering to Automobile Sector, Refrigeration Compressor Sector and Industrial Application Sector.

They are planning to enter into other potential sectors. In future, Padmavati Group is planning to supply sub-assemblies to OEM’s. According to their marketing strategy, the customer share of the business, should not exceed beyond 30 % of the turnover. Their financial strategy is to raise cheap finance from various banks and financial institutes. They are working hard to be competitive in the industry, by implementing all these strategies.

“Our growth has always been depended upon our customers, and we have taken their suggestions seriously whether it was with regards to investments, buying of new machinery, or when starting new operations. This has always resulted in the growth of our organisation.” said, Mr Nikhil Patil, Joint Director Padmavati Group.

Padmavati Group has come a long way, and customer support has played a very important role in their success. BFW has always helped them to meet their customers’ demands on time. According to the company, they are very satisfied with the robust machine construction, service and support provided by BFW. In future, anytime they plan to buy a VMC or a Pallet Changer Machine, BFW will be their first & only choice

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