SUCCESS STORY OF POLYCAB CABLES AND WIRES – A 2000 CRORE COMPANY
JAISINGHANIS - They are the Ambanis and Birlas of the Sindhi Community
By Mahesh Vaswani
From a 5 Lac annual turnover to a 2000 Crore business – this is not a chapter from the history of Tatas, Birlas or Ambanis. This dream story is reality of POLYCAB, Asia's top branded and largest wire and cable manufacturing company. POLYCAB, an ISO 9001:2000 company is a story about Sindhis who have made it to the top. A story of four brothers who are the Ambanis/Birlas of the Sindhi Community. SINDHISHAAN takes a look at the success story of the company led by Managing Director Inder Jaisinghani and his brothers Girdhari, Ajay and Ramesh. The four have remained united despite the wealth, power and glory that has come their way along with success.
Today the cables and wires from India's largest manufacturer have blitzed a trail of goodwill and demand not only in India but also across the globe. Simple looking and soft-spoken Girdhari says “ success in the global competitive market has made the POLYCAB brand a leader in countries like Kuwait, Egypt, Malaysia, Mauritius, Syria, United Arab Emirates, West Indies, Maldives, Cyprus, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Syria, Africa and the United Kingdom. In our business, what matters most is availability and consistent quality, which in our case, is comparable to the best in the international markets. Over three decades, from a modest beginning, POLYCAB has set up state-of-art manufacturing facilities in Daman”.
Revealing the secrets of POLYCAB's success, Girdhari says, “firstly we ensure that the products are of the best quality and reliable in use over a period of years. Then comes the pricing-prices have to be commercially competitive while quality has to be kept consistent. An optimized stocking policy, backed by professional technical support for Applications and Projects is another secret of our success. We derive our strength from millions of our satisfied customers all over the world”, while issuing instructions and checking out international orders which have just been placed with POLYCAB.
“Changing markets need product development and sectors like utilities, power generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, petroleum and oil refineries, steel and other metal industries, the cement industry, chemical plants, Atomic energy plants, generation of Nuclear power and many more such fields need constant development. So we have to constantly ensure innovations in the product while maintaining quality, our foremost criteria. Domestic users of wires and cables are also a major segment of the market and it is they who have been our most loyal clients for decades”, he says.
Elaborating on the quality control systems at the Daman factory, he explains that the copper, aluminium wire rods are drawn on high speed wire drawing machines from Niehoff-ASA, having an on-line annealing system. The annealing process acts as an on-line inspector. Excessive voids, inclusions and other internal wire defects cause annealer burnout (burn the wire in half) and such defects have to be prevented in a finished cable. The diameter of drawn wire is maintained in a close tolerance. And the production rate is over 2500 tons per month!
The other type of process is MULTIWIRE DRAWING. For a flexible/stranded conductor, fine wire drawing is carried out on high speed, fine multi-wire drawing machines from SAMP, Italy. It is a fully automatic process with logic controllers for lubricant pressure, drawing speed, on-line annealing, and a tension control system with a vertical, parallel wire winding system. This ensures a continuous 100 km of 16 wires on one spool, having identical characteristics throughout the length, and this production capacity is of over 1500 tons per month.
Then there is STRANDING (CONDUCTOR) in which the Copper, Tinned Copper or Aluminium drawn wires are stranded on tubular stranding machine equipped with "Asia Cartelloid (Switzerland)" on-line conductor resistance measurement system. All stranding machines are equipped to ensure even tension. The machines produce over 15000 km Conductor per month.
Another process is BUNCHING in which the fine drawn parallel wires undergo bunching operations on auto mode programmable logic controlling bunching machines from SAMP, Italy, and ensure even twisting on continuous 25 km smooth conductor.
The most important process is INSULATION. Insulation for domestic Wires and Flexibles is carried out on a high-speed twin head extrusion system from Nokia Mallifer, Switzerland with plain, stripes, spiral and tracer coloring systems; online diameter meter, inkjet printing and online testing system. Jelly filled/Dry telecommunication cable insulation is carried out on Tandem lines from UK, having similar features.
The extrusion for PVC, XLPE, EPR insulated power/control and other cables is carried out on extruders having screw and barrel from Brooks Oldbury (UK) with extrusion lines having online diameter controllers from Beta and Sikora UK. H.T. cables cores are made on state-of- -art triple head extrusion systems for semicon conductor and XLPE, having computerized operations thereby ensuring consistency of thickness in all layers. Before laying-up, the XLPE & EPR insulated conductors are steam cured in Thermax-Revomax steam curing stations under standardised conditions. Production levels of Control Cables/House Wires & Flexibles touch 50 million core km per month.
A company spokesperson informs about, GROUP PAIRING/LAYING UP (JFTC/QUAD/SIGNAL CABLES/DATA CABLES) - where the cores thus produced are paired on group twinner to ensure uniform twisting/pairing under controlled tensioning and "on-line insulation defect screening system" to produce subunits of 10 /20 pairs. Number of such twisted pairs (or subunits) are laid-up on drum twister to form a super unit of 50/100 pairs with coloured tape for identification. Laying Up/Taping, Jelly Filling/Screening, Armouring(LT & HT Power/Control and other Cables), Sheathing/Jacketing, are some of the other production related innovations and controls which are put in place by highly trained professionals and with computerized precision.
Having conquered global markets, today POLYCAB is one of the leading names in Wires & Cables with its proven track record of over three decades..Cables, Dry/Jelly Filled Telecommunication Cables, CATV, LAN, Data & Communication Cables and now Optical Fibre Cables. The company is presently one of the largest manufacturer of L.T. Power - Control and Instrumentation cables, House wires & Flexibles, Auto/Battery cables, Submersible, ACSR, AAAC and Aerial Bunched Cables; H.T. Cables (upto 33 kV), Rubber Cables, Dry/Jelly Filled Telecommunication Cables, CATV, LAN, Data & Communication Cables.
Realising that he was getting too technical for laymen - Girdhari shifted gears to commercial issues which are of immense interest to the Sindhi community.
EXPORTS: With it's tradition to satisfy all it's customers requirements, from an immediate demand to integrated Cable Management; quickly, efficiently and competitively, Polycab combines material availability with technical expertise to develop the most cost effective cables and wires in order to meet the highly competitive international market. Backed by its dedicated Export Department and its representatives in various countries, Polycab has, the ability to dispatch material and ensure that the immediate and ongoing needs of the clients are met- WORLD WIDE. In a very short span it has managed to execute orders from around the globe. In fact, it is the First and Only company in India to have supplied material to the U.K. market under its own brand name. With an unrivalled track record for long-term support, excellent service and dedication to quality, the company has been rated as the first and certain choice for wires and cables by many buyers in the international market.
Inder Jaisinghani, the Chief Managing Director of POLYCAB says, “customers’ loyalty to our products is unimpeachable. Customers are looking for rapid response from us. Demand keeps exceeding the supply. We are confidently looking to the challenges of demand ahead and for this we are constantly introducing new technology and business processes. Many of our current customers have been loyal to us since decades. We have impressed them with our service, quality, products, reliability, attention to detail and competitive prices. During this period, we have forged relationships with several leading national and international companies and will continue to add more companies to the list of our satisfied customers. Our goal is to help the customer achieve his goal, and only if this is achieved, can we declare that our goal has been achieved!”
Some of the companies who have proudly appreciated their relationships with POLYCAB include INDO GULF CORPORATION LIMITED, SEIMENS, BHARAT HEAVY ELECTRICALS LIMITED, MECON LIMITED, KPCL, TOYO ENGINEERING (INDIA) LIMITED, MAZAGON DOCKS LIMITED, CPRI, HINDALCO INDUSTRIES LIMITED and many more. POLYCAB has its branch offices in Vadodra, Chennai, Bangalore, Secundrabad, Kolkata and Delhi, besides having hundreds of marketing-teams world wide.
Every organization has a humble beginning; so did Polycab. Encouraged by the initial success in trading it was the vision of Inder T. Jaisinghani, the Chairman and Managing Director who convinced the team of brothers Girdhari, Ajay and Ramesh to reap the fruits of the booming times in Cable and Wire industry by switching over to the manufacturing of Wires and Cables, themselves.
With a consistent 30% growth every year over the last 6 years, the remarkable boom last year from 847 Crores in 04-05 to 1600 Crores in 05-06 is a record in the Wire and Cable industry of India.
As Inder concludes, “our ideology is to ensure that while buying Polycab products the customer buys peace of mind. In these trying times of changing trends and the need to keep pace with the global challenges of the new millennium, we at Polycab are committed to provide utmost customer satisfaction by continuously offering quality & service. Our team of dedicated professionals supported by the ever-expanding modern plant at Daman and Silvassa, keep abreast with the latest technology, through consistent upgradation, research and development.”
Truly Polycab Wires Pvt. Ltd. has come to be known as the Wonder and Showcase of the Cable Industry.