• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Port Info

• Ships in Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• The Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Our Bureau

Mr A.M. Naik, Chairman and Managing Director, Larsen and Toubro Ltd, and Mr P.R. Dinandt, Chief Executive Officer, Mannesmann Plastics Machinery GmbH, with a model of the L&T-Demag Plastics Machinery Ltd factory, at a press conference in Chennai on Saturday. — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , Oct. 1

LARSEN & Toubro Ltd plans to develop a manufacturing growth centre in Coimbatore, its fifth such centre in the country.

Simultaneously, the company is also considering having another facility to manufacture marine structures at an investment of about Rs 500 crore.

Mr A.M. Naik, Chairman and Managing Director, L&T, told newspersons here on Saturday that the proposed manufacturing centre in Coimbatore would have multiple units between now and 2015, including a switchgear unit and another to make precision tools, dies and components for the aviation industry. A valve unit of Audco, an L&T group company, is also likely to come up in Coimbatore.

Marine structures: Mr Naik said the company was considering another facility to manufacture marine structures such as offshore platforms, rigs and floating production systems. "It is now in the thinking stage and we will have a blueprint stage in a year," he said.

The company has a unit to produce marine structures at Hazira in Gujarat. However, it faced the constraint of low depth - only 4 m - because of which it could only manufacture structures of 1,500 to 2,000 tonnes.

L&T was looking to manufacture floating production structures and offshore platforms of up to 10,000 tonnes, which required a depth of up to 12 m. The company had looked at one site in Gujarat, two in Andhra Pradesh, and the Tamil Nadu Government had offered a couple of sites in the State, he said. The second marine structures production facility will be the sixth manufacturing growth centre for the company, after the one proposed in Coimbatore. The others are in Powai, Mumbai; Hazira and Ranoli, both in Gujarat; and Chennai.

Attrition: Mr Naik said one serious constraint the company faced was in attracting engineering talent and retaining it. The attrition rate in the manufacturing industry was 15 per cent as qualified engineers move away from manufacturing either to engineering services or information technology. He said the challenge, therefore, was to train engineers and offer them global opportunities.

Plastics machinery unit: Mr Naik was addressing a press conference on the eve of the inauguration of the manufacturing facility of L&T-Demag Plastics Machinery Ltd, at Chembarambakkam on the Chennai-Bangalore national highway. The company has moved into the new facility that has been set up at an investment of Rs 25 crore.

The plant has a capacity to produce 600 plastics injection moulding machines and will shortly have a capacity to make 1,000 machines.

L&T-Demag is an equal joint venture of L&T and Demag Ergotech GmbH (a part of Mannesmann Plastics Machinery Group) of Germany. L&T-Demag's plant is in the same facility as L&T's rubber machinery plant.

Mr Naik said with the plant moving to a new location, the capacity would go up to 600 machines from 350 earlier. Exports constituted 20 per cent of L&T-Demag's sales and the company is was keen this increases that this increase to 40 per cent.

Mr Pepyn R. Dinandt, Chief Executive Officer, Mannesmann Plastics Machinery GmbH, said the joint venture's turnover would be Rs 125 crore this year and that the Mannesmann group viewed L&T-Demag as a venture that was achieving good growth.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Airlines brace for lean season with lower fares

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line