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New subsidiary and new managing director
India is an important market for Karl Mayer and the company has recognised this by setting up a new assembly factory in the country’s western region.
4th July 2014
Knitting Industry
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Obertshausen
Karl Mayer has set up its first processing facilities in Ahmedabad, India, recognising the country’s increasing significance for its business.
India is an important market for Karl Mayer. This traditional textile country is currently the second most important sales region for its Warp Preparation Business Unit. In some sectors, such as direct beaming and sizing machines, Karl Mayer has a market share of more than 90%.
The service subsidiary, Karl Mayer India Private Ltd, was set up as early as 2009. The company’s own training facility, the Karl Mayer Academy India, was opened in June 2012.
The company’s site is located in Ahmedabad and covers an area of 3,700 m2, of which 2,100 m2 are taken up by the assembly hall.
To ensure that the assembly work is of the highest quality, experienced local service technicians were trained to be responsible for quality assurance – a strategy that has already been successful in China. Between 12 and 14 workers were taken for the start of the new assembly operations.
“If we are really successful here, we can offer our customers all the advantages of local production, i.e. short delivery times, customer-specific solutions and favourable acquisition costs, without any of the tax disadvantages associated with imports,” explained Alexander Kistner , the Project Leader.
A celebration was held on 27 May to mark the opening of the Karl Mayer factory in India. Representatives from the company and its local agent, A.T.E., took part in the celebrations.
Official visitors from Karl Mayer’s top management included the CEO, Arno Gärtner, the Head of the Warp Preparation Business Unit, Roland Kohn, and Jochen Schmidt, Head of Technical Textiles, Kevin Socha and Milind Mirkar – the Managing Director and General Manager of Karl Mayer India – and head of the Warp Knitting Business Unit, Oliver Mathews.
The newly developed DS EC2 machine was also premiered at the opening celebrations. The opening and inauguration event included traditional ceremonies, such as the saying of prayers, the burning of incense sticks, gifts of flowers to the god, Ganesh, dances in traditional costume and the cracking of a coconut shell.
These opening celebrations on a smaller scale will be followed by an open house event for Karl Mayer customer at the end of April 2015. In this respect, it is planned to present a warping machine, a wider MJ model, as well as some tricot machines.
By the end of this year, the Karl Mayer Academy India will move from Surat to Ahmedabad. By concentrating the service activities Karl Mayer hopes to achieve a lot of synergies.
The participants in the training courses can have a look at the machines produced there. On the other hand, Karl Mayer also benefits from the proximity to its customers.
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