Study on foundry sector conducted

Coimbatore foundries have more export opportunities to tap with growth in the end user segment, according to a draft report of a study on Indian foundries by the ICRA Management Consulting Services.

The Coimbatore foundry cluster has about 600 units and most of them are small-scale. They produce 40,000 to 45,000 tonnes of castings a month. In the last five years, output of the Coimbatore foundries has grown at 15 to 20 per cent and it is estimated that Coimbatore contributes nearly 15 per cent of the total casting production in the country. A large number of these units make castings for the pumps, valves and auto industry. Further, a majority of these are ferrous castings (nearly 60 per cent).

According to C.R. Swaminathan, chief executive of the PSG Industrial Institute, the final draft of the study will be ready by the end of December. The study aims to assess the potential of the Indian foundry sector, review performance of key foundry clusters in the country (such as Coimbatore) and recommend interventions to enhance competitiveness.

It also aims to benchmark manufacturing cost competitiveness of Indian foundries as against those in China, Brazil, Mexico and the CIS countries. It will also prepare a SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats) analysis of the Indian units. The number of units in Coimbatore and casting output has gone up during the recent years with growing market.

This exercise will help the Coimbatore foundries since it will study the units here vis-à-vis their counterparts in some foreign countries and suggest how they can improve, he adds
Source: The Hindu