Water pump manufacturing industry is one of the most difficult industries to be a part of in the present times. However, there is one company that has made its mark in the industry and has set standards for other companies – Waterman Industries Pvt. Ltd. In this edition of iFaber, we have brought you another tale from the floors of one of our clients, which also happens to be India’s first ‘ZED Certified’ pump industry. We had a chat with Mr. Bharat Patel – Managing Director, Waterman Industries Pvt. Ltd and immediate past President of IPMA (Indian Pump Manufacturers Association). Excerpts of which are mentioned below –

Faber Infinite (FI) – We have a subscriber base of around 15,000+ readers across India, Africa and Middle East and our readers would want to know more about Waterman Industries Private Limited?

Mr. Bharat Patel (BP) – Waterman Industries was started in 1973 in Mumbai. Till 2000, we grew at a considerable rate but later, we found that Mumbai was not very viable and thus we decided to shift our base to Ahmedabad in 2002 since at that time, it was the hub for pump industry. After shifting the base, we witnessed a drastic change in productivity and profitability for Waterman because of the easily availability of raw materials and manpower. Apart from these factors, even the land and space availability and cost also differ highly in Ahmedabad and Mumbai which helped in witnessing such change in the numbers.

FI – Every industry has its own challenges. What are peculiar challenges unique to your industry?

BP – We manufacture 15 types of pumps with more than 1800 models consisting of more than 15000 components. The biggest challenge we face is manufacturing pumps as per the needs of the customer from different geographies since the power and water availability varies drastically as we move across the statesin India. Moreover, pump is a seasonal product. Hence, it becomes highly difficult to anticipate which pump will be ordered more in what quantity at what time. This makes it very difficult for us to deliver pumps at deadlines which are very important since pump industry is already very time constrained. Another challenge is the approval process from government organizations like ISI. These processes are often long, expensive and cumbersome especially for MSME.

FI – Progressive teams of Waterman Industries are charting their own success path and setting trends for others to follow. What is the core philosophy that differentiates your organization from others?

BP – At Waterman, we work on people welfare instead of the product. We have developed an extremely open environment at our organization where we promote transparency and we provide equal and potential opportunities to every employee to learn, develop and make himself / herself more skilful and efficient.

FI – We would love to understand more about the transformation journey at Waterman Industries Pvt. Ltd. What are the phases of this journey and how has it helped your team?

BP – From starting, we have been implementing various tools like Kaizen, Five S, Integrated Management System (IMS) and others and we are religiously following it. This has helped us a lot in making our processes more effective and efficient. We have also been implementing Green Manufacturing and are extensively using lean practices in our organization.

FI – We appreciate that under your able leadership the organization has shown great results in the continual improvement journey. We would love to know your views on Faber’s role in the growth numbers?

BP – In 2017, we received ‘ZED certificate’ with silver ratings. We didn’t stop our journey then. We then associated ourselves with Team Faber Infinite and they provided us with some valuable inputs. We even implemented Performance Management System with Faber Infinite at Waterman Industries. As a result, the employees now have become more active and are now participating in all activities of the organization. Team Faber has even helped us in increasing our production by 20%, space saving by more than 50%, reworking has been reduced by 23% and in improving many other aspects of manufacturing. We have been able to get the work done right first time. Our inventory management has also improved subsequently after our association with Faber Infinite. The inventory has come down from 2 months to ~20 days. They have been great consulting partners and have delivered phenomenal results.

We thank Mr. Bharat Patel and Mr. Akash Patel for sharing their views and support. Our sincere wishes to them for future successes and growth!