His passion for manufacturing drove Aravind Melligeri, Chairman & CEO, Aequs, to enter this field from an engineering services background. "At the end of the day, I believe that we need to have a physical product to realise anything virtual.

The fact that Aequs has investments in every stage of making something from the conceptual stage to reality in mechanical products is what inspires me to strive for more and achieve perfection at every stage of delivery. My biggest strength is to visualise what can bring value to customer and how to realise that deliverable by optimising the supply chain globally," he says, with a sense of pride.

After all, Aequs sources materials from 20 locations, manufactures in three locations, and delivers to global customers in multiple locations.

Aequs is amongst India's fastest growing precision manufacturing companies. It recently laid the foundation for a new automotive components plant at its 250 acre Aequs SEZ in Belgaum. The new automotive plant will add machining capacity of over 100,000 hours annually and will support the company's rapid expansion plans in the US and Europe markets this year. Aequs aims to increase its revenues from the automotive business to US$ 30 million by 2020 and is scouting to establish joint ventures to add to its capabilities in this vertical.

The new plant, which is expected to be operational from March 2015, will further strengthen Aequs' emergence in the last few years as among the few Indian companies in the automotive component manufacturing space to provide a ‘manufacturing ecosystem model' wherein interconnected processes in the manufacturing value stream such as forging, machining, heat treatment, grinding, and so on are delivered at the same location thereby minimising supply chain inefficiencies. Aequs will manufacture engine and transmission parts, sub-assemblies and assemblies in the new plant.