Mr. L. J. Naidu is a Graduate in Mechanical Engineering with 27 years of machine tool experience, working with GROB since 2007 as Managing Director for Indian operations. Started with GROB as their first employee in India and now built a strong team of 35 and a financially strong subsidiary, planning to start construction of GROB India plant in 2019 which will raise the employee strength to 100 by 2020. His ‘customer first’ approach is also the philosophy of GROB Group, that ensures a high level of strong and quality after-sales-service support to Indian customers. For this reason, he is highly appreciated by every customer of GROB.
Q. You are an industry leader. What precisely is your niche?
GROB has been globally well-known for highly sophisticated automated manufacturing systems and assembly lines for the high productive automotive industry. Our portfolio also includes universal Machining Centres, production plants for electric motors and assembly lines for battery and fuel cell technology
Q. What are the technological innovations you could showcase recently?
GROB engineers have developed efficient solutions for plasma coating of cylinder bores, solutions for the aerospace industry, like cutting high strength turbine housings and machining complex structural components and 5-axis profiles. We have developed GROB-NET4Industry, our proprietary digitalization software and are today, an innovative supplier in all aspects of production in the area of electro-mobility.
Q. How did you fare in Q1 & 2 and what’s your outlook for the remaining part of this fiscal?
After a very successful performance of 1.54 billion Euros in financial year 2017-18, we have seen very dynamic 3 quarters this year. Having clocked substantial business for the new technology of electro- mobility, we have further secured our system business with Automotive OEMs and are making steady inroads into the universal machines segment. We are refining and optimising G-Module machines to suit the needs of the local markets.
In the Indian market also, the outlook is very positive that has prompted GROB to procure land in the state of Andhra Pradesh, near Bangalore to enlarge subsidiary operations to augment competitive turnkey solutions to our customers in India and neighbouring countries
Q. What are the dynamics of the industry and what measures do you take to stay ahead?
Reliable, efficient and accurate 5 axes Machining Centres are becoming indispensable in any modern Machine Shop and we are constantly innovating our products with larger work areas and high dynamics combined with our horizontal spindle orientation on all machines.
In India, the machining fraternity is moving towards value-added operations that need sophisticated machine tools that can run trouble-free for long periods. With our robust machines and a highly sophisticated remote service diagnostic system installed at Hyderabad, we are fully geared up to support our customers on a global level.
Q. What are the drivers which could accelerate the desired growth in your industry?
Machine tool market in India is growing above 10% CAGR and only about 47% is taken care of by domestic manufacturers. Due to Make in India thrust by Government of India, investments are taking place in the areas of aerospace, automotive, medical and engineering. Shift towards electric car manufacturing will also open up opportunities for GROB.
Q. What is your vision for your company?
We want to remain as the most trusted machine supplier for the high end high productive automotive production globally. As far as the Indian operations are concerned we want to consolidate our association with global companies as their preferred supplier and increase our footprint in the large and medium sector by supplying our universal horizontal Machining centres and the reliability and sophistication that goes with them.
