Metalman to commence tractor cabin manufacturing

Metalman Auto, manufacturer of sheet metal and tubular component has bagged new orders from International Tractors (Sonalika International). The new orders makes Metalman to enter into the tractor business, which will manufacture cabin and silencer for the tractor major. The company will be manufacturing 5 different kinds of cabin and 3 cabins have already crossed the approval stage and 2 more cabins are in the clearing stage and waiting for approval. Expecting all the approvals to be cleared by end of February this year. The production for the same will be done at its Indore facility, where the company has invested around Rs 5 crore towards the new business. The air-conditioned cabins, which will be manufactured by Metalman will be exported through Sonalika Tractors. The company is already into other heavy equipments and targeting to have a venture deal with a major earthmoving equipment manufacturer and the samples for the same are already ferried.

S G Mundada, President (Operation) Metalman Auto proclaimed that, “We are already into heavy components but entering into the territory of tractor is a debut effort. Facility-wise we have not gone for any investment as we had capacity to offshoot the business. But we have invested in laser cut machines, CNC cutting machines, paint booth and installed 8-10 robots for automating certain tasks. The investment altogether comes around Rs 4-5 crore. To start with we will be supplying around 70 cabins per month to International Tractors (Sonalika International) and will be scaled up gradually. The Indore plant currently supplies 150 cabins for Case Construction where-in our capacity could output around 300 cabins per month. We could source for more orders to go for the additional capacity utilisation and we have already initiated talks with Tafe and Mahindra.” The component major is also into