SKF India to Roll Out New Products From Pune Unit

SKF India to Roll Out New Products From Pune Unit SKF, global supplier of products, customer solutions and services in the rolling bearing, seals business and related businesses, is all set to roll out new product from its manufacturing plant in Pune. The Pune plant caters to bearings. Talking to presspersons, Mr Rakesh Makhija, Managing Director, SKF India, said the new product is the medium cylindrical roller bearings. The product would begin its roll out in the second quarter of the current calendar year (around April) and would cater to the industrial applications. He said a full channel for the production of the medium cylindrical roller bearings has been set up in the Pune plant, though he did not divulge the production capacity. He said so far the product was being imported. Looking at the lubrication systems, Mr Rakesh said last year was the first year of its products in the country and the company was looking at a revenue turnover of about 10 per cent from this business within the next three to five years. He said this was applicable in both industrial and automobile applications. The other expansion was in the ball bearing segment - about 50 per cent capacity expansion and 35 per cent in tapers. SKF India posted a 13.17-per cent increase in net profit for the fiscal ended December 2005 at Rs 64.07 crore as compared to Rs 56.61 crore in the corresponding fiscal. Net sales had increased to Rs 781.39 crore (Rs 581.31 crore). However, the company had posted a lower net profit of Rs 10.24 crore for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2005 as compared to Rs 15.70 crore in the corresponding quarter previous fiscal. Net sales increased to Rs 249.10 crore (Rs 163.19 crore). Mr Rakesh and Mr Tom Johstone, President and Chief Executive Officer of AB SKF, today inaugurated the first international SKF College Campus in Pune. Mr Rakesh said the SKF India Centre for Learning has been started in 2002 with a focus on people development. During the past three years, it has had more than 400 programmes for employees, customers, distributors and suppliers with an average of 70 hours of structured training per year for every employee. Mr Rakesh said moving into the next phase through the SKF College Campus, it would focus on offering knowledge-based programmes through the reliability maintenance institute (RMI). He said the customer programmes would focus on the five platforms of bearing and units, seals, lubrication systems, services and mechatronics. He added that the Pune centre would act as a hub for all training in the Asia-Pacific region as also for the global customers.