Interview with Ishaan Nath , Director of Kadimi
Can you tell us the short history of Kadimi Group ?
We started Kadimi in 1977. Over the last 4 decades we have emerged as a leading supplier to the fastener & cold forging industry. When we started the business there wasn’t much fastener production in India, the market being small, there were just a handful of suppliers with an interest in the fastener industry. Kadimi saw the potential in this market and started representing some leading global manufacturers in India.
In 1987, we started manufacturing flat thread rolling dies and gradually expanded our product range to cover the full range of flat dies.
In 2008, we started investing in renewable energy and started producing electricity.
In 2013, we started manufacturing cold heading wire for the fastener & cold forging industry.
In the last few years we have consolidated the businesses & both the entities are now 100% owned by our family.
You bought out your Joint Venture Partners; was there any business impact by the decision to do this?
The overall impact has been very positive to say the least.
Initially on thread rolling dies, we lost some sales as our erstwhile JV partner was also our distributor in the US & European markets. But as a result of our hard work and technical expertise we have more than recovered the sales. We continue to add customers globally and have been especially focused on business development in the EU and Turkey.
Similarly, for steel wires, the impact has been very positive from day one. Our customers appreciate the fact that we are approachable and have a customer centric approach unlike some of the large corporations they are forced to deal with.
There are a lot of synergies for our sales as the same customers require both wires and thread rolling dies. In 2018, we set up an office in Germany and in 2022, we started a sales office in Spain. We are now focused on expanding our team and developing more business in this region.
Where are the production and sales locations? Do you have new location plans?
At present we have two manufacturing facilities. For thread rolling dies, we have Kadimi Tool, which is located near New Delhi, India. For Steel Wires, we have Kadimi Special Steels, which is located near the port outside of Chennai in Southern India.
Additionally, we also have a sales offices in USA, 2 in Europe, 1 in Hong Kong (for Greater China region), and 4 across India.
Currently we are looking at establishing a production location in the US and Europe. We already have partners that we have had long relations with to cater to specific countries such as Spain, Italy, Brazil, China, Taiwan, Korea amongst others.
We are now actively looking to build our sales teams in key focus markets like Turkey, Poland and Germany.
Can you give figures about the company? (number of employees, quality certificates, factory, machinery, equipment etc.)
Our wire plant has an area of more than 10 acres and is ISO 9001 and ISO 14000 certified. Our dies plant is also ISO 9001 certified.
We currently employ approx. 600 people globally and are looking to expand furthermore, especially in key markets like USA, Germany, Poland and Turkey.
Being focused on environmental friendly practices, we have invested heavily in renewable energy and we use these sources for most of our energy requirements in our plants.
We use the best quality equipment & processes for all our facilities.
At our wire plant, we have Spheroidize Annealing furnaces made in USA along with a fully automatic pickling line.
For thread rolling dies, we do all the manufacturing in-house including heat treatment and surface treatments. This helps maintain our competitive edge, improves our quality & reduces our lead time significantly. We are equipped to deliver dies to our customers within a short time frame of 2-3 weeks, and of course our team’s knowledge and planning plays a huge role in this.
What are the products you produce currently and plan to produce in the future? In which products you are more assertive?
We have two product lines primarily catering to the fasteners manufacturing companies. We manufacture a very wide range of flat thread rolling & form rolling dies to cover almost every application. In addition to expanding our production capacities further, we are constantly innovating in order to meet the changing demands of our customers and to cater to new industries.
The second product line is Alloy and Non-Alloy Cold Heading wire. We manufacture high quality wire for aerospace, automotive and bearing industry. Our present size range is from 2.00 to 34.00mm. We intend to expand our size range to smaller sizes of under 2.00mm. The location of this facility is near Chennai port in South of India giving added advantage of short transport time for our overseas customers.
Which countries is Kadimi currently exporting to? Which regions are in your target market?
We are exporting our products to more than 40 countries worldwide and have a wide network of distributors. We are looking to expand our business world over with a special focus on Europe and Turkey. We have recently established an office in Barcelona, Spain. We are seeing growth in this region as our customers are finding cost and efficiency benefits. We are also local now which helps us be closer and provide better services to our customers.
According to your experience, from the order stage to the delivery stage what are the services that customers care most?
The customers look at 3 factors; price, quality and delivery.
In addition, we offer technical support so that our customers can develop more complex parts for their own customers.
We have an “Express Production Line” for thread rolling dies; to meet customer’s urgent requests. At this, we produce the dies in less than 2 weeks. This has really helped our customers in urgencies and is greatly appreciated by them.
What is the position and privilege of your company among your competitors in the world?
We are one of the biggest and most reliable manufacturers of flat thread rolling dies in the world. Our lead times and product quality has been gaining appreciation from our customers around the world. We always have a “Customer First” approach and this has helped us gain a lot of market share.
For wires, we are flexible and meet special requirements of customers on quantity, quality, etc. We are finding that our customers appreciate our pricing, lead times and ease of business.
In which direction do you think the customer demands and trends in the fastener sector will increase? Which do you think will come to the forefront in the production of fasteners?
The market is changing due to the shift to EV from ICE (Internal Combustion Engines). We expect this will reduce the demand for certain type of fasteners. However, the overall demand of fasteners will increase as growth in other industries will compensate for this.
What kind of corporate strategy do you think is needed to protect and further develop your position in the global and local market?
We hope to enhance our presence in local as well as key markets like USA and Europe by providing regrinding facility for thread rolling dies and also providing local stocking through our warehouses and distributors.
What are Kadimi’s goals and future investment plans?
We have been investing heavily in upgrading our manufacturing facilities at both our manufacturing locations.
Furthermore, we have setup local offices in USA, Spain & Germany. We have just launched our second European location in Barcelona, Spain which will be our European headquarter.
We have been using our technical expertise to work closely with our customers to develop their special thread rolling needs and provide application based support.
For wires, we have expanded our range to cater to varied requirements of our customers. Furthermore, we are keeping a large stock of our regular sizes in order to shorten lead times. We are also developing wires for different applications and industries.
