Lakshmi Machine Works started CNC Manufacturing in the year 1988. With decades of eminence and experience in this domain, the company has won over 9000 satisfied customers by installing over 24,000 machines across the country and beyond our shores. With 65 models and numerous variants serving a wide range of industries, LMW machines help manufacture components that are cost-effective. With a steadfast customer focus, the company helps the customer achieve high productivity while entailing less cost per component. This is achieved by introducing technology innovations in machine design and manufacturing. Die-Mould industry is a major target segment for the company, says Indraneel Bhattacharya, Vice President–Sales & Marketing at LMW.
Q. Is everything hunky-dory with the machine tool industry today?
Globally, the Indian machine tools industry ranks 10th in the production of machine tools and 8th in consumption, according to Gardner’s World Machine Tools Output Survey. The machine tools industry is one of the major pillars of the manufacturing sector of Indian engineering. It is a part of the capital goods sector which contributes 12% to the manufacturing sector, representing a vast multi-disciplinary field with numerous end-use application areas.
The machine tools market in India is poised to grow substantially during 2020-25, probably at a CAGR of nearly 13 to 14 percent. Keeping our fingers crossed, we are seeing good days ahead for the Indian Machine Tool manufacturers.
Q. What’s the standing of LMW in the metalworking world, and what its niche?
LMW Machine Tools has a strong presence in the Indian manufacturing industry which has been driven by high quality products which our esteemed customers see as great value for money.
The company has always invested in the state-of-the-art technology and infrastructure to meet the ever-changing and advanced requirements of the manufacturing industry. We are glad our customers rate us as one of the finest range of CNC manufacturers in India.
Q. What’s exciting in your range today?
The machine tool division takes pride as an integrated solution provider, offering a wide spectrum of CNC machines, customized solutions, automation and IOT solutions.
Our product portfolio covers Horizontal Turning Centers, Vertical Turning Centers, Horizontal Machining Centers, Drill Tap Centers, Vertical Machining Centers & 5-axis Machining Centers. With over 65 models & variants serving a wide range of industries, which provide end users with an opportunity to manufacture components that are cost- effective.
Q. What are your offerings for the automotive sector including EV?
LMW offers a wide range of products for Auto Components Manufacturing sectors, OEM’s to Tier 1, Tier 2 in turning, milling where mass production demands with accuracy for under chassis parts, transmission parts, engine components in 2/3 & 4 wheeler, Passenger vehicle and commercial vehicles. LMW also offers J series machines capable of high speed machining especially for EV aluminium parts machining.
Q. Die & Mould is a significant target market for you. What are the bespoke solutions you offer to them?
Die Mould Industry segment is very significant for LMW as a machine tool builder. The machining requirements of Die Mould machining such as surface finish, vibration free, high speed acceleration and deceleration will help us to enhance the product to stay ahead in the market, thereby fulfilling the other segments’ requirements too. In the context Die Mould is very significant for LMW. The industry is growing and with growing manufacturing, we hope to add many customers from the die & mould industry in the coming years.
Q. Please enlighten our readers about your manufacturing facilities and wherewithal.
Our Manufacturing facility comprises Mother Machines sourced from the world’s best brands which in turn ensure that all our products are built with the highest level of accuracy.
A Clean and temperature controlled atmosphere is dedicated for critical assembly, thus ensuring total quality control. Our manufacturing facilities are fully integrated with IOT for production monitoring and machine condition monitoring to ensure effective utilization of resources.
With precision and quality being the DNA of the organization every employee is naturally aligned to the concepts of delivering world-class products.
Q. What’s your benchmark for quality and reliability?
Quality is a single parameter drive to our every action. Our passion for quality is not only reflected in our production process but also all other segments like machine design, manufacturing, and Service support by meeting our customer expectations. We are bench-marking ‘First time right’ quality in each and every process in our organization. Reliability provides best ROI to our valuable customer by chiselling out product with high built-in quality & reliability.
Q. How do you harness industry 4.0 norms and digitalisation to enhance your operational efficiency and productivity?
As an organization we are now able to respond faster to Customers. We have also implemented a lot of automation in manufacturing, planning and assembly areas, which helps us seamlessly connect the in-house IOT to ensure higher utilization factor, and lesser downtime by predictive maintenance.
We have implemented office automation mainly in sales, marketing & service departments as well as in manufacturing operations. We have implemented the CRM on cloud platform and the entire sales & service force is now connected online 24X7. This is helping us to connect with customers easily as there is a high level of transparency across all stakeholders.
Q. What are the trends in technology and machine tool automation? How do you keep in step with them?
Higher Productivity with Lesser Cost per component is any machine tool user’s expectation. We strive to meet this by incorporating technology innovations in the machine design and manufacturing to optimize costs and provide greater value addition to customers. As an example, we have introduced customized user-friendly screens for the operator & maintenance personnel to make the operations simpler and a lot more informative.
We have developed advanced IOT for the growing needs of the industry. This allows us to monitor and guide customers and field engineers remotely.
In order to address the customer on-time delivery commitment, we have expanded our facility with state-of- the-art advanced technologies, thereby reducing our order to delivery time.
Q. You seem to offer economical solutions to the end-user without compromising on quality and features. Please elucidate.
We focus on value for money for the customer. It’s not just cost of the machine but the output from machine that matters. To simplify, it could be called as ‘cost per component‘. If we are able to deliver this at optimal price, our customer welcomes it.
Our focus on quality, which means the products produced on our machines must meet the requirements consistently and with minimum or zero stoppages. We are continuously striving to maintain this focus.
Q. What’s your R&D busy with at the moment? Any new products in the anvil?
LMW has over 60 years of R&D experience in Industrial Machinery and out of this we have spent 30 years only in CNC machines. We have a strong R&D team which is fully capable of delivering state-of-the-art products. We will be introducing at least 10 new products year on year to meet the market requirements. We have 50 products with 88 variants of turning, milling and turnmill products to various segments such as electronic, railways, defence, aerospace, etc.
We are continuously working to enhance the quality of our products to meet the parts quality at the optimal cost of ownership. We are launching our new vertical machining centers with high speed machining capabilities for die mould segment and turnmill center for complex profile which gives a very high surface finish and profile accuracy.
Q. What are the efforts you take to maintain your leadership position?
We are coming up with products which should address our customer’s prime expectations of product quality, productivity, accuracy, ROI, service support, and low operation cost. These factors will help us to increase our market share. We hold our leadership in the market by offering product with built-in quality coming out of our modern manufacturing processes backed by a highly trained service team.
Q. How do you visualize the future of machine tool industry vis-a-vis the growth of LMW?
LMW started CNC Manufacturing in the year 1988, with over 30 years of eminence and experience in this domain, we have won over 9000 satisfied customers by delivering over 24,000 machines. Our customers are from various sectors of manufacturing industries. Today we have a pan-India presence. We also export our products to all GCC Countries, Vietnam, Kenya, China, Russia and Bangladesh.
The way forward will be global products, futuristic, smart and intelligent machines that will also be capable of addressing the new generation materials & composites. The machines by default will be IOT enabled.
