Rabatex owns up to three manufacturing units in the city of Ahmedabad that have been active for the past 22 years. The units oversee the production of up to 14 types of warping machines, as well as 30-35 kinds of material handling and storage equipment. As the interview with Managing Director Haresh Panchal indicates, the company is all set to not only post impressive growth but also diversify into various other verticals
Since its inception in 1962, Rabatex has made massive strides from its humble beginnings in a small workshop to one of India’s leading pioneers in warping technology, textile machinery as well as material handling, with over 32 countries lining up, eager to receive their products. In the 1970s, Rabatex was the only company in India that boasted the ownership of machines with the technical components present in textile machines imported from Europe, and have slowly established their dominance over the years through sheer willpower and single-minded dedication towards customer satisfaction.
Infrastructure and Production
An interview with the esteemed Rabatex’s Managing Director Haresh Panchal has provided great insights into the inner machinations of the company as well as their plans for the future. Currently, Rabatex owns up to three manufacturing units in the city of Ahmedabad that have been active for the past 22 years.
The units oversee the production of up to 14 types of warping machines, as well as 30-35 kinds of material handling and storage equipment. In addition to this, the company has made significant progress in the development of the vertical storage system as well as investing in automatic storage retrieval system technology (ASRS), an area in which the company sees massive potential in coming years.
These technological advancements of Rabatex can be credited to the ingenuity of their in-house research and development department that has been contributing to wards the company’s success for over 35 years. It consists of professionals from a variety of fields, including experts from the mechanical, IT, electronics as well as engineering industries, all dedicated towards the singular cause of develop- ing advanced technology required to make a reverberating impact in the industry.
In the spirit of learning more about technological improvements so as to incorporate them into their own trade practices, as well as to seek assistance when faced with new obstacles, Rabatex has collaborated with many leading institutes in India such as IIT Delhi and the South Indian Textile Research Association (SITRA).
Customer First
Aside from their rapid technological advancement, the company’s success over the years can be attributed to their iron-clad customer satisfaction policy, which ensures that all customer complaints are addressed with utmost care and diligence by the professionals, who will strive to find a satisfactory solution for the grievance in question.
This, Panchal believes, is where Rabatex distinguishes itself from its competitors, both domestic and abroad. Not only has the company developed some of the best technological components in the market which has earned them prominence across the top players of the industry over the last 30 years, the company’s management, as well as every single employee down the chain of command prioritize the satisfaction of the customer above all else.
As a testament to the policy that drives their company, Rabatex has upheld the competence of their engineers regarding customer satisfaction and has been the recipient of many certificates of merit for the same. Today, in 2021, Rabatex is reportedly supplying to more than 32 countries, with 27% of their business being to foreign countries, including USA, Turkey, and Morocco.
The company now prides itself in being the sole supplier of machinery to at least 50% of the major players in the textile industry, a position it gained, under the mindful leadership of Haresh Panchal who joined the company in the 1990s and regards his biggest achievement till date to be the launch of the fully automatic sectional warping machine for the Ashima Group, back in 1996, which was the result of a herculean effort from him and his team.
The launch turned out to be an immense success giving Rabatex a new image in the Indian textile industry and led to over 300 orders for the advanced sectional warping machines in that year alone. These installations proved that the domestic products offered by Rabatex were more than a match for the European textile machinery that was prevalent at that time. The company has grown and expanded over the years with its major manufacturing units in Ahmedabad at the center of its operations and has established support centers in Surat, Bhilwara, Panipat, and Coimbatore.
Despite the setbacks faced due to the ongoing pandemic, the company has pursued successful business with numerous companies. This includes Shahi Exports in Shimoga and Standards Textiles from USA, chalking up to 15 repeat orders in the last 18 months alone.
Growth Prospects
Regarding business, the order books of Rabatex are indeed brimming with both domestic as well as international clients who are eager to receive a supply of the advanced machinery and will keep the company busy with exports until at least May 2022. In Asia, India has, as Panchal astutely puts it, become one of the major textile machine manufacturers. He is of the belief that all decent manufacturers in the country who have made a name for themselves regarding product quality and effective technology will have a good opportunity to thrive in the global textile market for at least the next two to three years.
As it stands, Indian textile machinery has reached a level of admirable quality. The market has, for the last 10 years, been flooded with Chinese textile machinery, which has a pitiful repeat order ratio, demonstrating the inferior quality of the products. On the other hand, while it is common knowledge that at one point European machinery was the popular choice due to the impressive make and durability, Rabatex is standing proof of the ingenuity of Indian machinery, with over 100 such installations that have been running smoothly over a 30-year time period and show no need for replacement of any kind.
Till date, there hasn’t been an instance of any Chinese machinery running for long periods of time with no issues, which has inevitably reduced confidence in machinery imported from China, while instilling confidence in the textile machinery manufactured by Indian companies due to the positive results shown by the latter laid bare in front of them. Prominent customers of Rabatex maintain that the company has exceeded expectations regarding both product quality as well as customer satisfaction. The installation, which was made at Ashima over 25 years ago, is still running without any hitches to this day.
“We are a customer-focused company. Ergo, all our activities, including quality enhancement, innovation, pursuit towards the centre of excellence, and customer delight. We also firmly believe that happiness and self-actualized employees make happy customers, and consider our employees to be our most valuable assets.
– Haresh Panchal
Another client, Arvind Limited, has purchased as much as 23 sectional warping machines from Rabatex, out of which six machines have been installed around 20 years ago, and function smoothly to this very day. With 22 years of cultivating excellent business relations with their clients, the companies to whom Rabatex supplies its machinery have no qualms in contacting them for parts, servicing and support at reasonable costs. Sangam Group, BSL Limited, Donear Industries Ltd. and Raymond Ltd. are but a few companies with whom Rabatex has conducted prominent business transactions with over the years.
Haresh Panchal’s vision that Rabatex will one day become one of the most preferred global brands by supplying innovative products has become a source of inspiration to those who work under him, who strive to make this dream a reality. With the help of their research and development department, new areas, as well as alternate uses for their existing technology, are constantly being explored. Rabatex has diversified its business by turning its attention towards material handling technology as well as vertical storage equipment. Particularly, they are investing in technical collaborations regarding ASRS technology, which signifies the advent of higher levels of automation in the textile industry.
Additionally, Panchal points out that the uses of their developed vertical storage technology is not merely limited to the textile industry but will be of high demand across a plethora of industries, namely, automobile, aerospace, e-commerce, banking segments, pharmaceuticals, etc.
The company has thus shown consistency with regard to the quality of their technology over the years, and their determination to ensure optimal consumer satisfaction is inspiring to say the least. With their aim set on diversification of their products, Rabatex is perfectly positioned to take the textile industry by storm in the coming years.
