Foreseeing the rise in demand for its products in India and outside, Roots Multiclean Ltd is in the process of expanding production capacity. “There is shortage of manpower in India when it comes to Cleaning activities. This has created a demand for cleaning equipment right from the civic bodies to large business houses,” said S. Krishna Mohan, Managing Director – Marketing & Exports, RMCL. With companies engaging FM services, demand for indigenous machines of imported quality is on the rise. RMCL, with a strong R&D, is planning to manufacture export-oriented machines which can be supplied in the Indian market as well.
Since RMCL is well-equipped with inhouse R&D, testing and manufacturing facilities, their existing partners – Hako Werke, Germany; Minuteman, USA; and Truvox, UK – have started outsourcing design, parts and sub-assemblies. “We have been assigned to redesign their machines in India. As an economical alternative, these companies have started sourcing the parts of the machines from us. Soon, it is likely that the entire machine would be sourced from us,” he added.
Even in the scrubber drier range, though Hakomatic E/B 430 has its own market, people are looking for bigger machines at competitive prices. Though there are imported machines from Hako and Minuteman, only a portion of the market is open due to its higher cost.
Hako this year has introduced two versions in most of its ranges – one deluxe version for the EU markets and a standard version for the Asian market.
“Traded goods too have expanded making it essential for us to stock machines from the US, Germany and Italy in order to reduce the time of delivery to the clients. We again need space to stock. Though this move would block the working capital and create a cash crunch as it is a huge inventory of high value imports with 100% customs duty and ocean freight insurance paid upfront. This consignment will wait until the customer comes to purchase; pays in Indian rupees before we order the next consignment. We take this risk to satisfy our customers’ requirements when they need them.”
RMCL has been planning a 10,000 sq. mt warehouse in the factory premises to stock Powerboss, Hako, Minuteman, Delfin, Soteco, Cleanfix and TTS ranges. In the janitorial sections, RMCL plans to work through distributors.
Many leading international companies have also approached RMCL to make machines for them, revealed Krishna Mohan. “We are already in the process of making a unique carpet cleaning machine for a well known US company. The machine not only picks up dust but also does shampooing and extraction. There are other deals also in the pipeline.”
In the existing machines also there are add ons. “There are dedicated escalator cleaning machines in the market but these have not picked up in Asia. The reason being the longer time taken for mounting, changing of brush and dismantling. But the Roots Wizzard machine requires only a change of brush, is easy to mount and the escalator need not be stopped while cleaning. This machine probably performs 80% of the task. Hence, we are in the process of making it 100% efficient for escalator cleaning. There will be a housing mounted on the Wizzard which will then be mounted on the escalator and attached to a vacuum cleaner. Since everyone will be having a vacuum cleaner, the cost of getting the attachment is much less. Off late the demand for Wizzards in the international market has increased.
“Also the metal in the flipper machine has now been replaced with engineering polymer, making it suitable to all conditions. And this new flipper will be ready in a month’s time.”