Impact Safety Glass Works Pvt. Ltd., a Bangalore-based company, has emerged a popular supplier of glasses meeting the requirements of many leading companies in the country’s highly competitive automotive market. The company is working with prominent manufacturers of buses, trucks, construction equipment and also passenger vehicles, supplying quality glass as per customer requirements. It also supplies glasses for the automotive aftermarket.
Currently, the company is focussed on the bus segment, which has witnessed entry of new players in the domestic market. With a decade of experience in the segment, demand for Impact’s glasses has been growing, and the company continues adding to its customer list. It is in fact working with all leading bus manufacturers in the country, including Tata Marcopolo, Ashok Leyland, Eicher and Mahindra Navistar, through reputed bus-body builders such as MG Automotive, Veera Vahana and S.M. Kanappa. Impact glasses are also supplied to the Volvo and Daimler range of buses, while talks are in progress for supply to MAN and AMW.
In the truck segment, the company is in discussion with Tata Motors, AMW, Scania and Foton w
hile supplies have already started to MAN. Impact is also working with Ashok Leyland-Nissan for LCV glasses and offers aftermarket products for the Hino range of vehicles. In the construction equipment segment too, it works with some of the leading manufacturers.
Impact has a 35,000 sq. metre production facility in Bangalore with a daily capacity of 100 large glasses to cater to the heavy vehicle segment and 500 small wind screens for smaller vehicles. High-tech machines are imported from Finland, and the plant is capable of making glasses with printing of designs being done in-house.
“Currently we have glasses which can provide a complete solution for buses and trucks. We have invested close to Rs. 30 crores for a 30-acre facility near Kolar in Bangalore which would cater exclusively to the passenger vehicle segment. We are also keen on penetrating into the truck segment”, says Mr. Vikram Dutt, Director, Impact Glass.
Unlike others, the company does not insist on a sizeable minimum order from customers. This approach has attracted a lot of new customers.
The company gets automotive quality glass as the raw material on which operations such CNC cutting, grinding and washing are performed in a single flow line. This is followed by printing and bending of glass. The glasses are laminated using a poly vinyl butyral (PVB) film, which is imported from Solutia of the US.
Impact is capable of making glasses of different standards such as American, Japanese and Korean to meet specific customer requirements. Its quality control lab where the glasses are tested for compliance to required quality standards has an R&D team with technical know-how to make finished glasses from the drawing stage. Recently, the company installed a new machine for making side glasses for buses that is capable of making 200 pieces per hour or 50 sets of bus glasses per day, of sizes 1.7 to 2.4 metres.
The company is currently focusing on the domestic market and would look at the potential American aftermarket in due course. It has started exporting to Sri Lanka, while discussions are in progress with Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Impact has a TS 1649 certification which is a benchmark for any automotive glass supplier. The company also has the privilege of printing ISI on the glass, to give additional insurance benefits for customers. It holds the E Mark certification, a premium quality assurance mark and is also accredited by the United States Government Department of Transport DOT certification.
In 2011-12, Impact registered a turnover of Rs. 75 crores which is expected to go up by 10 per cent this year. Almost 40 per cent of the total turnover comes from the automotive OEM segment, 20 per cent from the automotive aftermarket and the remaining 40 per cent from the industrial sector.
With the entry of global players into the commercial vehicle segment and consistent growth in demand for passenger vehicles in the Indian market, Impact Glass certainly is well poised to make an impact on the fast growing domestic market.