LRT Has Significantly Increased The Life Of Its Ring Travellers

Rendezvous

LRT Has Significantly Increased The Life Of Its Ring Travellers

The current market scenario in yarn especially in southern India is quite volatile. Do you see the situation improving soon?

Spinners are facing a hard time, yarn prices are tumbling, production cuts have been effected. As I understand, there is an excess capacity of production every month, which is creating all the havoc. One third of the production is exported. The total domestic consumption is not enough to take up the excess capacity. I therefore think it may take a while for the situation to improve.

What has been LRT's strategy in this situation?

In this time of chaos, our strategy has been to introduce new products in the market and support our customers to get more value out of our product. One of these new products is the Ruby finish travellers, with improved surface finish for optimum friction, thus ensuring longer life of the traveller. This product is good value for money, and is priced a little higher than our base product. Then there are some other interesting products - Sapphire travellers, Maxima travellers, Express travellers, with very interesting properties that ensure the production of high quality yarns.

How are the export markets doing for LRT?

We have a dominant market share in the international market too, owing to our new line of products. We are customising our products based on specific market needs. We are steadily increasing market shares in most export markets, when traditionally the market has gone too cold. We are introducing country specific finishes to suit individual markets. Like for the Indonesian market we have introduced the Gama finish, which is extremely effective for polyester based yarns and synthetics in general. This particular coating gives fabulous results because of its higher bow height and surface finish. Also the friction suffered by the yarn is lower because of the coating. Owing to this, the yarn does not have imperfections , which is common in case of synthetics.

Why are you making this product available only for the Indonesian market?

Keeping a bigger strategy in mind, we are supplying this product to the Indonesian market because the market is synthetic dominated and thus giving us good results. Factors like logistics, stocking and pricing etc. are well taken care of in this market.

Is logistics an issue for the export market?

Not really! We have a huge stock with our agents as in most markets. Some big buyers directly place an order and buy from us directly in some markets, whereas many place a demand with our agents and we are equipped to send them their orders within 24- 48 hours for most of the items from the many stock points available in different countries around the world.

Tell us a little about the other market specific products.

We have launched a new product this year viz Ruby finish for which we are getting encouraging response from the market. We have also improved the performance of all our product ranges by improving the surface finish and the process parameters. Our customers have informed us that they have obtained increased life in all our product ranges by 20-40% due to this. This is further helping us consolidating our position and improving our market shares.

Is this product available for the Indian market? What are the India specific products under the LRT banner?

Ruby finish is available for the Indian market. Almost all our profiles and ranges are available in India. We offer a variety of finishes too in this market. In fact India can definitely stand ahead of the global market in terms of the variety the company offers for the in-house market. Owing to the international standards and considering the other country specific formats, we offer different value products for different countries.

LRT and innovation. How do you sum that up?

We observe the global markets quite closely and pick up the trends that we find are relevant to the future. We try to make use of the newness in our context and genuinely innovate the same. We look forward to the first mover advantage and pick up on the change in trend before the same is made commercially viable by anyone else. Our strong R&D team helps us to understand the market specific requirements, pick up new trends of yarn spun and forecast the trends and future usage too. Based on these new market developments we are innovators in developing new products in terms of profile, cross sections and finishes.

How do you think the industry will progress in the coming years?

India is definitely going to be the global spinning capital. With China's spindlage coming down, I feel India will overtake running spindles of China in the years to come. Another trend will be on increase of value added yarn like slub and core yarns in India, which we are already seeing in a big way. Automation, Value addition and increased productivity are the buzz words for future of Textile spinning industry which will differentiate the men from boys.

What are your views about the 'Make In India' campaign with respect to the machinery and accessory perspective?

India is definitely going to be the preferred choice globally when you talk of textile spinning accessories. The technology gap is negligible when it comes to accessories and India is comfortably leading the league. LRT for example today is a global leader, present in over 35 countries and in terms of sales produce more than double than our nearest competitor making us a clear leader globally in this field. Similarly there are many Indian accessory manufacturers who produce world class products and are leaders in their respective fields.

What are your expectations from the 'Make In India' campaign for LRT?

Our main cost is the raw material which we import. We pay a substantial duty to import raw materials. The government can look at making us more competitive by reducing the customs duty for the raw materials for the Indian Textile industry in general.

What are your expectations from this year's ITMA?

The global textile industry is not in a very healthy state at present. Coupled with that is the general onset of winters and festivities, so I am assuming that this year the participation at ITMA will be a little low. The health of the industry closer to the exhibition dates, will determine the visitor turnout as is normally the case. Being a global player it is extremely important for us to network with our customers and engage in brand building and ITMA is an excellent platform for this.