Macneill Engineering Ltd, the ₹60-crore materials handling equipment company from Kolkata, is ready to lift itself into a higher orbit. Pradeep Churiwal, Chairman and CEO of the company, feels the growth opportunities are improving the industry is on a higher trajectory.

With the GST coming into effect, the national warehousing network is getting a facelift and the material handling industry is now being linked to a smart and strategic warehousing grid instead of a capital-intensive investment by the manufacturers themselves.

The emergence of e-commerce and retail business houses, use of the latest technology for efficient warehousing, and supply chain management are changing the material handling industry dynamics.

Most manufacturers, who put up regional warehouses of their own to avoid inter-State taxes, are now changing their operational metrics and are outsourcing their operations to third party logistics service providers to save up to 20 per cent of cost.

Sensing the change, Macneill in September 2015 had gone in for a tie up with E-P Equipment Co of China for importing some high-end material handling equipment. It had a tie up with Linde, now Kion, for importing some of the equipment. From E-P, which has its manufacturing base in Hangzhou, Macneill is importing forklifts, stackers, pallet and reach trucks (of 11 metre height). Now , it is importing about 600 material handling equipment from the Chinese company a year.

From oil and power sectors, its customer base has expanded to steel, paper, polymer, coal, railway and defence. Reliance Industries and ITC are among Macneill’s top clients.

Now, Macneill markets battery and diesel operated forklift trucks, reach trucks, tow trucks, hand pallet trucks, platform trucks and stackers.

How did it manage to survive the down cycle of the industrial economy in the recent years? It has innovated a novel way of hiring or leasing out of its equipment. Currently, more than 50 per cent of its revenue comes from the renting out of the equipment, up from 35 per cent in 2014.

It is also manufacturing e-loaders/dumpers, golf-carts, e-rickshaws and e-minivans.

Churiwal said Macneill was establishing its second unit at Goalpara in Assam exclusively for e-rickshaws and golf-carts at a cost of ₹2.5 crore. “The second unit will be commissioned in May this year. Initially we would have the rated capacity 600 such movers a month. This could, however, be taken to 5,000 a month”, Churiwal added.

Its first unit is located on the southern outskirts of Kolkata at Konchowki. In barely 15 years, from a sick unit in the Willamson Magor group of BM Khaitan, Churiwal could turn it into a profit-making outfit.

“We are making a thin profit now and have already wiped out the accumulated losses. We will end 2017-18 with a net profit of around ₹5 crore,” Churiwal said.

He said Macneill was now on the dividend list. In 2016-17, the unlisted public limited company had paid out 5 per cent.

Automation and competition in material handling systems has slowly been queering the pitch and the operational needs of the industry in India. Macneill is steadily preparing to face these challenges squarely in the near future.

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