Tiruppur Exporters Explore Local Production Of Critical Spares

Knitwear manufacturers from Tiruppur and engineering industry in Coimbatore are collaborating to boost domestic production of machinery spares crucial for the Tiruppur knitwear industry.

The initiative, spearheaded by the Tiruppur Exporters’ Association (TEA), aims to reduce dependency on imported spares and promote cost savings for knitwear units.

TEA has initiated a project with Tiruppur industrial associations, the Coimbatore District Small Industries Association (Codissia), PSG College of Technology and Sri Eshwar College of Engineering.

“The knitwear sector imports a majority of machinery and 10 percent of spares are critical and need to be purchased from manufacturers,” KM Subramanian, President of Tiruppur Exporters’ Association (TEA) said.

“Electronic circuits for many of the machinery can be sourced locally at very less prices compared to imports. By buying spares locally, knitwear units can realise significant cost savings,” he told the Hindu.

“A meeting was held in Tiruppur recently with all the stakeholders and the colleges will prepare a detailed project report for this initiative,” he added.

Joint Secretary of TEA, Kumar Duraisamy said almost 90 percent of the machinery used by the knitwear supply chain in Tiruppur is imported from the US, EU, China, and Taiwan.

Import of spares for the machinery is not only expensive but also challenging because of the shipment time, import levies, restrictions, and servicing time.

Further, most of the machinery now have electronic components and the small and medium-scale enterprises are unable to source these components at high prices from other countries.

“Hence, the TEA took the initiative to encourage local production of spares. This may lead to overseas machinery manufacturers exploring possibilities to start production of spares and even machinery,” he too said.

All the industry associations will submit details of the machinery used by their members, the main spares in need, the costs, etc.

The TEA will then display the main spares for the Codissia members who can take up production of these spares.

The individual associations in Tiruppur can also look at bulk sourcing of the spares depending on the requirement and the data collected.