“The functional aspect of technical textiles is as important as the aesthetic aspect, as a lot of thinking goes in to producing these products”, says a young 26-year old scion of the LNJ Bhilwara Group.
Technicaltextile.net recently spoke to the Executive Director of BMD Private Ltd – Shantanu Agarwal, who shared his vision of the company. Shantanu has graduated in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh – USA and thereafter did his post-graduation in Business Management from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, majoring in Strategic Management. “The functional aspect of technical textiles is as important as the aesthetic aspect, as a lot of thinking goes in to producing these products”, says a young 26-year old scion of the LNJ Bhilwara #
BMD Private Limited is the technical textiles division of the diversified Rs 48 billion (US $1 billion) turnover LNJ Bhilwara Group and was started in 1996, much before the rest of the Indian textile industry caught up with the idea of foraying into technical textiles.
BMD is a leading manufacturer of high performance specialized furnishing fabrics for automotives, decorative furnishing fabrics for homes, contract furnishing, flame retardant fabrics & air texturised yarn. It is a market leader in automotive fabrics and has a massive 50 percent market share in automotive fabrics in India, with a capacity of six million meters per annum.
LNJ Bhilwara Group has major interests in textiles, garments, graphite electrodes, power generation; IT enabled services, etc and completed 50 years of its glorious existence in 2011. Within its fold is RSWM Ltd, which has the second highest spindle capacity in India, Maral Overseas Ltd and BSL Ltd.
BMD was started off as a joint venture between LNJ Bhilwara Group and Melba Industries – Australia. Later a Belgium based company – DeWitte Lietaer bought a stake in the JV in 1997. They also partnered with a Japanese company – Seiren, the worldwide leader in automotive furnishing fabrics.
It started off as a very small unit in 1997. But now it is a complete integrated plant with 60 looms, 10 warp knitting machines, 25 circular knitting machines, yarn air-texturising machines and fabric processing, laminating and coating machines. BMD has now also begun exporting automotive fabrics, albeit in small quantities.
Shantanu Agarwal is involved in business development at BMD. Alongside he has also started an initiative to improve the product development process called 'Project Agrasar'. The project aims to build internal capabilities and cut down lead times in order to meet future competition head-on and service the customer in a better manner.
He considers the BMD business to be more service driven than product driven, so he spends more time building relationships by meeting their Indian partners, among whom are the who's who of the global automobile industry like - Maruti Suzuki, General Motors, Toyota, Tata Motors, Ford, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen and M&M.
He travels to Japan and Germany frequently to meet senior officials in the head offices of car manufacturers who have a final say in product purchase, since the product development of a new car is normally done in the head office and begins 2-3 years before the car is launched in India.
Speaking on their future vision, he reveals, “The opportunities in the technical textiles space are endless, so we are looking at a five-year time frame, with focus on new product development. We want to be competent and improve capabilities enough to meet competition head on as a lot of global companies are planning to set up shop in the technical textiles segment in India”.
“We have built up a very good and competent technical team and now we would like to use this knowledge to foray and expand in to other applications in the segment like nonwovens, with applications in medical textiles, etc.,” he adds.
However, he feels that it would be a long time, before any company is able to scale up to the production levels attained by BMD, since they have the first-mover advantage. Secondly, according to him, the business situation is unique in India, so the relations built up by BMD with their partners in the automobile industry in the past few years, would act as an unfavorable barrier for new entrants.
Providing details about Project Agrasar, he explains, “Expectations of buyers with regards to product quality or just-in-time concept are increasing with each passing day and keeping pace with thothose expectations keeps us on our toes. This project will help our technical team build new capabilities. We started off at a scale of 6 and within a few months, I feel we have touched 7, with a target to touch 9, the optimum being 10”.
TechnicalTextile.Net
News
Articles
Interviews
Webinars
Events
Advertise with us
About Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
Cookie Policy
