In doing so, ICC has closed down its Pune plant, which was manufacturing card clothing since more than six decades.

“The move is strategic, since the Pune plant is 63 years old and was primarily engaged in manufacturing card clothing catering to the low speed and low throughput carding machines segment, while the market is now gradually shifting towards high speed and high throughput carding machines,” Vinod Vazhapulli, CEO at ICC said.

“Being a pioneer in the industry, ICC foresaw this shift in market behaviour nine years back, when we started our facility in Himachal Pradesh, where we have installed the most advanced machines which cater to precision manufacturing and highly evolved production technologies,” he added.

The Himachal Pradesh plant currently specialises in addressing the card clothing requirement of the latest generation of carding machines.

With the strategic move of closing down the Pune facility, ICC will now be focusing production from that plant and ensure that this single plant caters to the whole range of ICC’s card clothing market.

The company is also in the process of further automating the plant with more advanced technologies, probably unseen in this industry. Additionally, some of the machinery from the Pune plant will be moved to Himachal Pradesh, as a lot of innovation in flexible card clothing products has been done in the Pune plant.

“This move to consolidate production under one roof will also enable ICC to improve on time and in full delivery parameters, thereby adding value for our esteemed customers, with better delivery lead times. However, our corporate functions will still operate from the Pune office and we will try to better customer delight, in terms of service and quality,” Vazhapulli informed.

ICC has closed the Pune plant through an amicable settlement with workers, many of whom have been working at the plant since more than 35 years. It has taken the interest of all the workers working in the Pune plant into consideration while negotiating the settlement.

In the next six months, the company is planning to come up with an array of products targeting high speed carding machines with improved life and surface technology and also, productivity enhancers in the carding equipment and accessories segments.

All these products are currently undergoing the process of Beta validation at various customer plants and are expected to be commercially launched in the market within the next six months, in readiness for ITMA 2019 in Barcelona.