PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2016

TRADE SHOW PREVIEW 36 PET planet insider Vol. 17 No. 05/16 www.petpla.net Interview with Indo-Air Compressors We met: Mr Kuntan Panchal, Joint Managing Director Compressors from Ahmedabad by Kay Barton The global compressor market, even in fast-growing and changing countries such as India, is a secure area of business – particularly in the context of continuously increasing demand from the construction and packaging sectors. We visited Indo-Air Compressors Pvt. Ltd., a company based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and took a look at the opportunities available to the family-owned business. While it started out as a local supplier it is now constantly develop- ing its national and international activities. Indo-Air is part of a family-owned and managed corporate group that also includes Manilal & Sons, Indo- Mac Engineers and Shree Chamunda Engineering Works. Its activities include the manufacture of machine parts, technology for plastic injec- tion moulding machines and areas of relevance to plastic. Established in 1977 as a supplier of compressor parts, Indo-Air is now an established supplier to OEMs including Ferroma- tik, Negri Bossi, KHS, Shyam Plas- tic, Windsor, Nissei ASB, Sidel and Newamstar. Kuntan Panchal (26), Joint Managing Director and son of one of the company’s founder broth- ers, met us to answer our questions. “We come from this region; my family originally comes from the farming business,” Panchal replies, when asked about the company’s historic roots. “My father was a tech- nician and designer. He started out designing and preparing compressor parts with a small machine because he saw that the market had a lot of potential. The actual compres- sor business, with machines that we developed and constructed in- house, began in 1998. Starting out early with compressor parts produc- tion gave us an insight into compres- sor technology and its manufactur- ing”. Indo-Air’s current portfolio encom- passes high-, medium- and low- pressure compressors for the bot- tling industry as well as rotary screw compressors and vacuum pumps. Its main market is in the construction industry; customers such as Ammann Apollo have been buying equipment from Indo-Air since 2001, when they were simply known as Apollo and a long time before they were acquired by Ammann, Switzerland. The plastics industry accounts for around one third of its main business; PET applications account for 20-25% of that. These figures could change quickly, how- ever; Panchal believes there is con- siderable potential in the drinks and Kuntan Panchal sees the growing demand for compressor technology in PET.