India has the second largest spinning capacity in the world. The cotton yarn industry is huge in the country, and has a story of its own to tell. Ankit Lath, director of Kamal Cotspin talks about the cotton yarn industry in India with Fibre2Fashion.com
What is the size of the cotton yarn industry in India? What are its strengths and disadvantages?
India has approximately 47 million spindles and 0.75 million open-end rotors. We have the world’s second largest spinning capacity. Total spun yarn production is approximately 4,500–4,700 million kgs, where 3,300–3,400 million kgs is cotton yarn.
India's strengths:
1. Major strength of the industry is the availability of raw materials i.e. cotton.
2. Labour is economical as compared to other developed countries.
India's disadvantages:
1. Capital intensive industry;
2. Interest rates are higher than other countries;
3. Highly competitive environment due to huge production;
4. Need duty free access or concessional import duty trade agreements like TPP;
5. Need preferential market access for Indian yarns and garments;
6. Dependency on export is increasing, and hence need to develop more weaving and garmenting capacity indigenously.
What are the latest innovations in cotton yarn manufacturing?
Over time, yarn manufacturing has evolved with many innovations from manual doffing at ring frame to auto doffing, normal motors to variable frequency drive (VFD)-driven, energy-efficient motors, bobbin transportation systems (BTS), automatic packaging machines, various energy monitoring and spindle monitoring systems and usage of sensors at various places. Many and many electronic advancements and changes have been done, not only in machinery but also in manufacturing facility -conventional brick and mortar plants to pre engineered buildings (PEB) plants.
How much has the Indian cotton yarn industry been successful in adopting them?
To be competitive, one will have to adopt the latest innovations and all new spinning mills are adopting the same. In fact, the old ones are adopting modifications which can easily be done, especially in the area of power savings.
How do you view the tussle between cotton fibres and man-made fibres in India?
I don't see any. Both are parallel to each other, and have different markets and usage. Ultimately, consumer demand, latest trends or fashion dominates the overall industry.
What are the sustainability initiatives carried out by Kamal Cotspin?
1. Cotton procurement at right price and right time;
2. Proper procurement planning;
3. Proper production planning as per market demand and trend;
4. Try to manage zero-finish goods' stock;
5. Sell every day;
6. We never speculate, but buy and sell every day in a speculative market;
7. Minimise the waste of resources especially power, compressed air and raw materials-believe in 'penny saved is a penny earned';
8. Maintain proper supply chain during production, avoid double handling of any process-do it right in first attempt;
9. Proper inventory management planning;
10. Targeting domestic as well as international markets, hence reducing the dependency on single market;
11. Ultimate focus on our group values i.e. business ethics, integrity and commitment to deliver quality, consistent and reliable products and services to our esteemed customers.
What is the budget allocated towards R&D?
Since we are in the commodity market, not much R&D is involved. But yes, R&D is involved in terms of upgrading the machineries and being equipped with latest developments to produce quality goods effectively and efficiently.
Published on: 08/02/2016
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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