The Hindu Business Line : IP Rings' new plant goes on stream, to double turnover next year

IP Rings' Rs 16-crore manufacturing facility for producing synchrocones and bevel gears has recently gone on stream. In a full year of production, the facility will yield a turnover of Rs 50 crore, Mr N. Venkataramani, Director, IP Rings Ltd, told Business Line today.

With this, IP Rings is set to double its turnover next financial year. The company reported a turnover of Rs 45 crore for 2004-05 and Rs 11 crore for the first quarter of the current year — same as the corresponding period last year.

The new plant, whose commissioning was delayed by one year (due to "teething problems"), will initially supply synchrocones to a large commercial vehicle manufacturer, but will eventually have a diversified customer base, Mr Venkataramani said.

A decade ago, India Pistons Ltd, a leading pistons manufacturer and one of the larger companies of the Amalgamations group of Chennai, set up IP Rings Ltd, in collaboration with NPR of Japan, for producing steel rings. India Pistons itself (a joint venture with Federal Mogul) manufactures cast iron rings.

Steel rings need their side-surfaces hardened; so IP Rings absorbed surface coating technologies from its collaborator. Over time, IP Rings acquired expertise in technologies such as thermal spraying, nitriding and plasma coating.

Four years ago, a large vehicle manufacturer "virtually knocked on our doors in the middle of a night" and wanted IP Rings to surface-coat some transmission components. This led IP Rings to a jobbing business, which fetched an annual revenue of about Rs 3 crore.

Later, the "large vehicle manufacturer" asked the company if it was willing to supply the whole components, rather than do just a surface-hardening job, on sub-contract basis. Hence, the Rs 16-crore project.

IP Rings got into manufacture of bevel gears simply because it had a press that could be used for that purpose.

Mr Venkataramani, who is the Managing Director of India Pistons Ltd, said IP Rings was always on the lookout for expanding its product range.

The company is currently in talks for this purpose with its Japanese collaborator, Nippon Piston Ring Company, which has a 10 per cent stake in the company. For quite a few years now, Nippon Piston Ring has been wanting to raise its stake in IP Rings and the Indian promoters have been linking it with transfer of technology for other products.

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