Last year, the Ace Micromatic Group, the largest machine tool group in the country, inaugurated its first-ever foundry. The foundry, which covers an area of 13 acres, is actually part of the Group's campus spread over 80 acres that will also house an integrated machine building facility and vendor establishments in the near future. Located in Minnapura, a village situated in the Nelamangla Taluk of rural Bangalore, the foundry is the brainchild of Ace Designers, the principal founding member of Ace Micromatic Group. The simple laws of demand and supply were triggers for the management to start thinking seriously about establishing a foundry.

On one hand was the massive requirement for castings and on the other, mounting concerns about overall quality, improved finishing and timely delivery. Since cost was a major factor too, the management decided that it was time to swing into action. The vision was simple: world class castings at competitive prices. "When we first started out, we were strictly a mechanical tools group. In time, we realised how important it is to have backward integration in place.

Prior to the foundry being in place, we had all our castings outsourced - from as many as 19 different foundries, which included some in China as well. Now that the foundry is set to meet our major requirements for castings, we'll have better control over processes and improved reliability as well. Almost 50 percent of the foundry's capacity will go into feeding Ace's in-house requirements. The rest will be accessible to external customers", says Shrinivas G Shirgurkar, Managing Director, Ace Designers Ltd. 

However, Ace Designers did not want the foundry to be limited to the manufacturing of raw castings only. The idea was to offer a complete range of services. This had to include: planning and execution of models, choice of metals based on customer needs and usage, development of pattern equipment and methods, machining in group companies, thermal treatment execution as well as execution of primering and tests.