Haas Automation helps Roca to redefine bathrooms

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2015-05-29 17:38:34

Every individual wants to live life with luxury. Everybody dreams of having the best amenities in their house. Be it a drawing room, bedroom or a bathroom, exotic fittings speak of exclusivity and extravagance. Roca Bathroom Products Pvt Ltd, situated at Chopanki in Alwar district of Rajasthan, is on a mission to make this dream come true. The company is part of a Spanish conglomerate with 78 manufacturing plants worldwide and seven in India.

Designing Dreams

“We sell lifestyle by redefining the bathroom. Our strategy has been to approach the customers directly by engaging with in-house designers who give an aesthetic look to the bathroom fittings so as to fulfill the customers’ needs. We have a huge design centre at Barcelona in Spain where inventions and advancements in designs are conducted. We also have designers in India who think from the local perspective and come out with the best product,” General Manager (Design) of the company, Mr Manish Maheshwari said adding, the company has strong presence in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries.

At the Chopanki plant, which was commissioned 10 years ago, the company manufactures only faucets thereby catering to the domestic market. “We are worldwide leaders in sanitaryware while in bathroom fittings, we are neck-to-neck with our global competitors. Our faucets feature the best designs. In addition to this, we have the most valued Roca brand, great after sales service, product know how and most importantly “people’s confidence” which gives us an upper hand when a customer selects our products,” Mr Maheshwari said.

The USP

The company was previously owned by Murugappa Group before Roca took it over 2007. They believe the brand comes first before anything else.  Going by this mantra, maintaining quality is the primary objective. “We set the standard for the best designed bathrooms and see to it that they remain in top condition for years. We always strive to give something extra to our customers as their satisfaction is of prime importance to us. Along with exquisite design and consistent performance, for over a decade, we have been offering a 10-year warranty on our faucets. Since taps are abused a lot by users these days due to bad quality of water and inappropriate flow, the valve has to perform consistently. To enable this, the plating provided on faucets should be of the best quality and this has been our strength,” Mr Maheshwari added.

As far as machining is concerned, the company relies on CNC technology. Ever since it started manufacturing faucets at the Chopanki plant, the company has been carrying out machining on Haas machines. “We are using two SPMs which we procured from our parent company and are ideal for dedicated production. The advantage of using Haas VMCs is that the changeover time is reduced drastically. Also, due to user-friendly programming, the operator can work with CNC programmes easily.”

Keeping Up With Times

“In fact, we were the first to introduce CNC technology in the bathroom fittings industry. Since we had a strong technical back up and support from Roca, we installed CNC machines in the toolroom first and then expanded it to our shopfloor. As on today, we have seven vertical machining centres (VMCs), all from Haas USA and are pretty happy about the way the machines are performing,” Mr Maheshwari said.

Technical Benchmark

Asked about there being any specific reason behind selecting Haas machines, the Deputy General Manager (Production) of the company, Mr Subhash Chand said, “Haas is value for money. For us, cost and value for money matters the most. In our industry, no one used CNC machines till we introduced Haas. Other machine manufacturers were selling one or two machines, but there were not many CNC machines in the sector. After we purchased Haas VMCs, the number went up considerably.”

“The margins are very low in this product besides the tough competition. Haas has fulfilled our parameters which are needed to maintain the quality. Also, the local Haas Factory outlet, CNCSSIPL is very professional in providing after-sales service. I am happy to say that we have added one Haas VMC every fiscal since we purchased the first machine in 2007,” Mr Maheshwari added.

From The Shop Floor

The company has been manufacturing 300 types of faucets in more than 100 designs at the Chopanki plant. Frequent set up change is involved during machining. “The design and know-how of the required fixture is provided by Haas and the fixture is manufactured at a local manufacturer. In one set up, two parts are clamped in the fixture,” Mr Maheshwari said adding, that the current cycle time is three minutes. The operations performed are Facing, Turning, Milling/Drilling/Threading and Chamfering.

“We introduced CNC machines for complicated products. Of the total seven CNC machines, six are the Haas VF-2SS (VF2) Super Speed model. There are three machines in one cell which is managed by one operator. The primary advantage with Haas is that the machines are flexible and suitable for small batch of 40/50 components as well as large batches of 1000 or more,” Mr Maheshwari said.

In Days To Come

As far as future plans are concerned, there is a huge scope to add more Haas machines. According to Mr Maheshwari, “We have plans to double our present capacity in the next 4 to 5 years. We have already discussed this with the local Haas Factory Outlet officials at CNC Servicing and Solutions India Pvt Ltd and have made it clear as to what is expected from them.”

“The infrastructure in terms of building and area is ready. The space has been allocated to add more machines.” In conclusion, Mr Maheshwari said that Roca is a satisfied Haas customer and would give first preference to the US-based company while discussing future investment plans.

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