Rhodes in venture to build factory in India

The Wakefield-based group, which designs and makes machinery for a range of markets, is setting up a 30,000 sq ft joint venture south of Bangalore with Indian firm, MEU Engineering, which makes cutting tools for the aerospace sector.

Managing director, Mark Ridgway, said the investment represents a “commitment by the business to the future of India as an export market for Group Rhodes”. He stressed that the factory would be manufacturing “purely for the Indian market” and would not displace UK manufacturing.

Mr Ridgway said: “It’s very important for us to keep our design dynamic very close to our process engineering.”

Group Rhodes, which employs 245 people, exports to 30 different countries each year.

Around a third of its turnover, which is in the £20m to £30m bracket, can be attributed to international markets.

The group’s order book for the next two years includes a £9m export contract to supply forging presses to Asia and the supply of a robotic and press assembly line to a bulldozer manufacturer in Brazil.

Yesterday, Joseph Rhodes, which is part of the group, was presented with a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise: International Trade by Dr Ingrid Roscoe, Lord-Lieutenant of West Yorkshire.

This is the second time that the company has won a Queen’s Award. Joseph Rhodes was presented with a Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2010.

Group Rhodes has two sites in Wakefield, as well as divisions in Sheffield and Manchester. “We’ve actually had 400 per cent growth over the last decade, which is quite significant given the recession and given the sector which is very capital intensive,” said Mr Ridgway.

Speaking about the attractions of the Indian market, Mr Ridgway said: “We have a great deal of advanced engineered products which can be serviced from our Bangalore office.”

He said that the firm has made “major inroads” into the Indian aerospace sector, through contracts with Hindustan Aeronautics, adding that currently Group Rhodes has £3m of equipment ready to be shipped out to India.

Group Rhodes has also worked with Calcutta-based Hindalco, a leader in aluminium and copper production.

One of the group’s companies, Craven Fawcett, which makes clay preparation machinery, is expected to reap rewards from the Indian market as infrastructure improves there.

Mr Ridgway explained: “We believe that the Indian market is very close to a take-off in terms of automation.

“It’s very much a rural-based operation at this moment in time and rather than manufacturing high order products to high order customers, or high value products to high value customers such as the aerospace offering, we realised in India we needed a different business model for our clay preparation machinery.

“That’s making sure we have the right product at the right price point to allow those rural businesses, those rural brick-making businesses to start to automate in a sustainable manner.

“Now at the moment you can’t actually transport a brick in India for less than the cost of manufacturing, so hence all the small village sites are very much village-based in terms of their sales because to transport is very expensive.

“But as infrastructure improves in India... then automation will be introduced and we want to be there at the forefront in terms of buying the appropriate technology to help that sector automate.”

Mr Ridgway also said that government legislation is changing the industry, adding: “And were there’s volatility there’s always opportunity and we believe the market’s right in that sector to start manufacturing in India for the Indian market.”

The Indian economy will grow at more than five per cent in the current financial year ending in March 2014, Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram said on Tuesday.

Call to look abroad

THE Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership has the highest number of manufacturing companies of any LEP, but one of the lowest rates of SME internationalisation, said Mark Ridgway.

Mr Ridgway, who sits on the board of the LEP, said: “After a recession it’s understandable, people tend to batten down the hatches, take low-risk approaches to business, but in effect the market’s out there and if we don’t take it as a nation then no doubt the Germans and the American companies will be in there before us.”

Mr Ridgway also sits on UKTI’s Advanced Engineering Sector Advisory Board.