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Yamazaki Mazak, a leading Global Company has decided to start manufacturing machines in India. With the new factory in India, Mazak will have 11 production bases all over the world, 5 in Japan and 6 overseas.
Yamazaki Mazak started its operations in India in 1998 and continued to grow at a faster pace. The company is known for providing Total Customer Solutions in the Indian market. Mazak has a Technology Centre in Pune with showroom for latest technology demonstration, application support, customer training, parts center, and spindle repair. The backbone of Yamazaki Mazak success story in India is highly trained manpower for providing turnkey solutions and after-sales service.
The company has a strong customer base ranging from OEMs to Job shops on pan India basis. Mazak offers 200+ varieties of Products in the Indian market from Multitasking, Automation, Horizontal Machining Centers, Vertical Machining Centers, and Turning Centers.
The new factory is in advanced stage of construction in Pune and will be operational in March 2023. The site area is about 23 acres.
At this special occasion, we had an opportunity to speak with Takashi Yamazaki, President, Yamazaki Mazak Corporation, Japan. Takashi Yamazaki has travelled in India extensively for the past 25 years and is well versed with Indian Industry. His personal admiration of Indian engineering talent, ingenuity and sincerity of workforce makes India very close to his heart.
Excerpts from the interview with Takashi Yamazaki:
Q. We know Mazak is a global name in machine tools. What precisely is your standing and niche?
Yamazaki Mazak is spread across the Globe having 10 factories and 38 Technology Centers.The new factory in India will be our 11th factory. The number of production bases in our company will increase to 11, including 5 in Japan and 6 overseas. The history of our overseas factories goes back to 1974 when we started operations at our North American factory. Since then, for about 50 years, the speedy provision of products and support through local production has been our basic strategy for gaining market share in overseas markets.
In India as well, the establishment of this new factory will enable us to provide prompt product delivery and higher quality support. Through this, we hope to gain a share of the Indian market and contribute to further development of the manufacturing industry in India.
Q. What is the reason for choosing India as a new manufacturing base?
With a population of approximately 1.4 billion, India continues to experience high levels of economic growth. India’s current GDP has increased about seven times since 1998 when we established our first sales office in India.
Currently, in India, a wide range of manufacturing companies, including automobiles, agricultural machinery, and aircraft, continue to actively invest in equipment as domestic demand expands. Especially in recent years, as the supply chain of the manufacturing industry has been reviewed worldwide, semiconductor investment in India has been active. Combined with these trends, demand for machine tools is expected to increase over the medium to long term.
Q. What is the initial investment in your new factory in India? Why Pune was chosen for factory location?
The investment in the 1st phase of Indian factory is approximately Rs 240 crore. The site area is 23 acres or about 88,185 sqm, and the total floor area in the 1st phase is approximately 23,130 sqm.
As I told you before, we started operations in India 25 years ago, way back in 1998. We chose Pune as our base because of strong presence of engineering industry and our existing Customers. In 2011, we opened a state-of-the-art Technology Centre to give support to Indian Customers. We also have a strong team in Pune and therefore Pune became the natural choice of starting a Manufacturing Plant.
Q. What are the machines Mazak is planning to make in India?
We will manufacture Vertical Machining Centers. We will start with 2 models: VC-Ez 510 IP and VC-Ez 410 IP with different table sizes. The new models will be added in a planned manner.
In the product Ez stands for Easy CNC control. The CNC control is user friendly and less dependent on operators’ skills. IP stands for India and Pune
Q. Please share with us the growth plan of Mazak in India?
We will start with about 70 employees and gradually increase our monthly production. In addition, this time is positioned as the first phase construction, and we plan to consider the timing of the second phase construction after seeing the order trends in the future.
Q. You are a trendsetter in machine tools. What are the emerging trends in technology?
The emerging technology trends are related to EV vehicles. FSW is one of our latest offerings in the market. FSW stands for Friction Stir Welding. We displayed this technology in our booth at IMTEX-23.
Q. What are the dynamics and the growth prospects of the machine tool industry in India?
Indian economy is growing at a fast pace and all the indicators suggest this to continue for a long run. The share of manufacturing is increasing in Indian economy and this will directly help the growth of Machine Tool industry.
