US-based lead-acid separator firm Daramic is to open its first end-to-end polyethylene (PE) manufacturing facility in India.
The company has completed the first phase of the new facility in Gujarat, India, with plans to start manufacturing at the plant in Q2 of 2017.
It has two finishing plants in India, one in Baddi and one in Bangalore, where the company will also expand its R&D capability and capacity of its Asia Technical Centre.
The new plant will support end-to-end separator production with state of the art extrusion, extraction, and finishing technology.
The move comes as the North-Carolina based company announced Bryan Moorehead had been appointed the firm’s new president.
Moorehead told BBB: “The key decision driver was our bright view of the India and South Asia markets and long-term commitment of growth plans to Asia and globally as well as growing investments in the lead-acid industry.
“This new plant will increase not only our capacity and local offering in India but also provide us global flexibility to better meet the needs of our customers around the globe.
“In addition, there is growing customer needs in India and South Asia. Previous practice was to use either standard automotive or industrial products in other regions with no specific R&D and production in India.
“With our local end-to-end production and local R&D center in India, we could really deliver innovative, high quality products for local customer needs and support our customers’ innovation and growth.”
He added that the company saw the potential of Asia, not only as a high growth region, but it would allow the firm to create more capacity globally, to better serve market demand.
“We can free capacity, currently supporting from US and Europe, focusing on regional (US/Europe) demand. So we will improve our supply balance globally and regionally,” said Moorehead.
The Gujarat plant will be Daramic’s sixth manufacturing plant in Asia, with others in Prachinburi, Thailand; Tianjin, China; Xiangyang, China; Bangalore, India; Baddi, India.
It also has four plants in Europe and the US.
