ISO
While working with Modi Rubber Ltd. I participated in International Standards Organisation ( ISO) / TC-45 ( Rubber & Rubber products ) activity along with Indian Standards Institution (ISI), later Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) and became the Convenor & then Chairman of TC-45 / SC-2, Testing Sub-Committee and took part in meetings of ISO TC-45 in different countries of the world for about a decade. Modi Rubber Ltd. sponsored me for all these years during 1980s enabling us to participate in the work and meetings every year in different countries for the ISO activity.
ISO / TC – 45 activity on behalf of the country involved lot of studies & laboratory experimental work using sophisticated instruments as well as secretarial job for sending comments, preparation of Draft Specification etc. Every year one member country hosted the meeting which used to last for 7 to 10 days, starting from 8.00 hrs to 18.00 hrs with one hour lunch break. All participants had to bear own all types of expenses for the total period and travel.
Standardization activity was slow and pain staking. Every point, technical or language & grammatical , was discussed & debated at length , put to voting for & against which had to be recorded , before accepting and proceeding further. Added to this often the subject was translated by interpreter from English to other language, primarily in French. Obviously the progress was very slow . Generally it takes about 5 years for finalization of a Specification starting from introduction of the subject.
After finalization by the Sub. Committee it has to be ratified by the main Committee and finally by the main body of TC-45. Then only it will be forwarded to ISO Head Quarter in Geneva for processing and printing. India did a good job during 1980s which got diluted slowly over the years with the retirement of certain key people who were active in this area. Besides the author some key people were Mr. M.M. Patel , Mr. M.S. Saxena of BIS , RRI Kottayam persons , later HASETRI persons etc.
IRCO
In the meantime, early 1980s we activated back the IRI Delhi branch which was in limbo and became the Chairman of the institute after some years. I, on behalf of Indian Rubber Institute, approached International Rubber Conference Organisation (IRCO ), UK for full membership with the support of AIRIA and academic institute like IIT, Kharagpur. For the first time we participated in IRCO Committee meeting at Harrogate, UK in 1987 and put forward the case of our membership with the strong backing of different countries like Germany, France , Yugoslavia , Russia etc. , representative of these countries were well known to me personally. India (IRI ) was accepted as a member of IRCO at this meeting. I should put on record of strong support of Dr.S.Wolff of Germany, Prof. J.B.Donnet of France , Mr. Lubijc of Yoguslavia towards the membership of India in IRCO against UK which was reluctant to let India in. Late Mr.D.C.Verma , ex Goodyear, was present in these meetings along with me and helped in the matter.
I represented the country and IRI in IRCO meetings held in different countries for over a decade, last being in 2003 at Nuremberg, Germany. Our active participation in IRCO Conferences and meetings over the years was highly appreciated. In the process we got the approval for holding the first ever IRCO recognized international Rubber Conference, Rubbercon 93 in India which was held at Delhi in February 1993 . It was a great success and opened up the avenue for fund raising for the cause of IRI activity and purchase of own offices all over the country. Fund raised from 1993 IRCO Conference was utilized for the purchase of IRI Delhi branch office, the first ever one in the IRI history. Subsequent conferences generated enough fund to establish the Council office at Kolkata after more than five decades of existence of IRI in the country. Similarly, Bombay branch also collected enough fund from their conference to purchase IRI Bombay branch office. This put an end to the nomad life of IRI functioning from different companies offices and got it’s own identity. This was a great achievement. I was instrumental to book 2010 for IRC Conference in India ( recorded in the minutes of the meeting during my time of IRCO participation ) and understand that IRI is going to organize the same in Mumbai in 2010.
Consultancy Activity
Immediately after leaving Modi Rubber Ltd. in 1993 , I started own Consultancy organization in rubber field in the name of “Polym Consultants” followed by “KPS Consultants & Impex Pvt. Ltd.” and established own office at Vasant Kunj, New Delhi which was shifted to Sheikh Sarai, Phase-II and finally to Devika Tower, Nehru Place, New Delhi. I never operated from my residence which is a common practice with the so called consultants who take up this title on retirement or leaving the job and start functioning from residence by simply printing a name card.
Soon I realized that there was a big gap in technical knowledge in rubber industry of medium and small scale, with respect to usage of proper material and processing to manufacture quality rubber products. Most of the industry had no Quality Control system and testing laboratory. Production and technology was driven by skilled mistri or foreman of the unit. This was more wide spread in northern belt. But they were highly enterprising and doing good business. With a little help towards better technology / process and material they could do much better.
Hence, when I approached different units all over the country, response was highly encouraging. With my past more than two decades of activity all over the country, also through IRI educational activity & conferences, I was already a well known figure in the country and once it was known that I am now working independently, I started receiving calls from all over the industry. Often, the working pattern was beyond the area of rubber technology – in other fields like market study, ISO certification, management system, training, education courses, sports goods etc. Our working activity was spread all over the country and many countries outside India.
Initially the consultancy activity was started with north Indian rubber industries which spread fast to all over India and soon to neighbouring countries. Subsequently, the activities were extended to all major Asian countries and to Russia.
Later, the company’s activity was extended to trading , import & export, as my son Anomitra joined the company after completion of his B.E & MBA degrees as well as short stint of work with industry. He brought in modernization and fresh ideas & shifted our office to prime location ( Nehru Place ) of Delhi. He started designing & manufacturing machineries at selected units and exporting to different countries. Similarly, specialty items were imported and marketed to Indian Rubber Industry.
Our activities were thus divided into two parts, Technical Consultancy & International trading.
Consultancy activity were further sub-divided in normal technical consultancy for the existing rubber units to solve their problems , carryout development work and modernization as well as quality control activity. The other more important activity was the Project Consultancy – to set up new Plant which would cover detail project report ( DPR ) , machinery, market etc. and Technical know-how for manufacturing the product. In the process we have worked for the projects for manufacturing different products like auto tyre & tube, cycle tyre & tube, industrial & printing rollers, railway items , sports goods, automotive components, rubber to metal bonded items, latex products , coated fabric, shoe & hawai and many other products over these 17 years.
My first client was Ralson India Ltd., Ludhiana with whom I am attached till date. I started with Ralson India Ltd. when it was a smaller unit and went through the period of major expansion & development , modernization and establishing of Q.C and R & D laboratory during last more than one and half decade. Today, Ralson India Ltd. is the largest producer of cycle / rickshaw tyres in the country. Later Ralson India expanded to the manufacture of auto tyres in a separate modern unit in Doraha , near Ludhiana.
For quite few years our consultancy activity was intensively carried out in the total of north India spreading over Delhi , Haryana, Punjab, Kanpur ,Meerut and other parts of Uttar Pradesh etc. Major activity for about a decade was in Punjab covering all major centers like Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Hosiarpur , Amirtsar etc. Major industries in this area were involved in the manufacture of cycle tyre / tube , auto tyre , sports goods and hawai. We introduced Laboratory testing and Quality Control system with most of these industries besides introducing better technology and processing which helped in improvement of the product and also in cost saving. Initially, Shatabdi Express was not there and traveling used to take lot of time and also not comfortable. The units in North India were smaller and lacked in technology & quality control. They had no laboratory and regular testing system as well as did not have any suitable rubber technologists.
Similarly, activity in Haryana covered Gurgaon, Manesar & Ambala besides Chandigarh & Derabasi. Also some work was carried out at Baddi in Himachal.
Our consultancy activities covered other part of India as well like in Western India major work was carried out in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Indore, Bhopal and in Gujarat state areas covered were Ahemadabad, Baroda etc. We carried out certain activity, some of the major project, in South India in places like Kannur (Tyre Plant ) & Rubber Board, Kottayam both in Kerala, in Bangalore in Karnataka, in Hyderabad, in Andhra Pradesh & Chennai in Tamil Nadu. Relatively lesser activity was in Eastern part of the country, some in Kolkata which any way did not have any more dynamic rubber industry. A number of work was carried out in Jamshedpur, now in Jharkhand. Of-course, regular activity was carried out with IIT, Kharagpur for academic and R&D purpose as well as organizing and attending Conferences on Rubber Chemistry & Technology.
Lately , since about two years, we have embarked upon a major Project work at Agartala, Tripura for Tripura Forest Development & Plantation Corporation Ltd. as well as with IL&FS Cluster Development for the development of Tripura Rubber Park , close to Agartala. The work is continuing.
Activity in Foreign Countries
Our major area of activity has been in the field of auto tyre sector. During these years we worked with many medium and smaller automotive tyre manufacturer who really needed help for technology and process improvement and benefited immensely with respect to quality and establish their product in the market – both domestic and export.
The major activity in auto tyre field outside the country was establishing a green field tyre manufacturing facility in Bangladesh, which, in fact , was the first auto tyre unit in the country established more than twelve years back with whom we were associated for a long period. Starting with production of small size tyres , it reached upto 16” tyre size about six years back when we departed from there. It was a great achievement to bring tyre technology to this backward area which lacked in all aspects - machinery, raw material, suitable skilled manpower and above all technical know-how . We had to take skilled persons from India and train local people over the period and introduce Quality control concept. Also they were trained for field performance analysis and interaction with fleet owners and customers.
In Bangladesh, we had a wide ranging activity covering a large number of rubber products manufacturing units making Rubber Roller, Bridge Bearing Pads, Shoe, Printing Roller, Cycle tyre / Tube , Retrading compound etc. During this period, we traveled throughout the country, from Chitagong to Syhlet, most of the activities were ofcourse in and around Dhaka. Bangladesh activity was for about a decade, from mid 90s, to mid 2000.
Similarly, we worked with tyre companies, established and new, in Nepal and Indonesia. Besides tyre industry, we worked with and established many non-tyre product manufacturing facility in these countries.
We were engaged by the only automotive tyre manufacturing unit in Nepal, near Gorkha for up-gradation of the technology & product quality. We worked for about two years and introduced many measures for improvement in the process and the product. However, this unit was very poorly managed and the output & efficiency of the plant was comparatively low and the people lacked motivation. Except one technical person , there were no experienced person of the tyre or rubber field which was a big hindrance in the implementation of the suggestions. The management and head office was far away in Kathmandu and communication system was not satisfactory. The original machinery and technology was from China of 1980’s and the unit needed lot of fund to change it to modern state which they could not afford. Hence, the desired result could not be achieved.
Besides this big tyre unit, Consultancy activity was also done with a medium size Rice Roller manufacturer over a period of time giving them input about machinery, processing, compounding, testing etc. The concerned person is still in touch with us.
In Indonesia the work carried out was with a large size tyre retreading company, manufacturing own retreading compound as well as doing tyre retreading. The units were near Bogor and another in Medan. Our job was to modernize and upgrade the compound & mixing procedure and tyre retreading system.
For project consultancy work, we have carried out many such activity out side the country as well like with Holland , Malaysia , Thailand besides other major Asian countries as explained below.
We were approached by a private European company in Russia for both R & D activity and marketing of a new product namely, a Carbon filler for partial replacement of Carbon black in different compounds, both tyre & non-tyre. Under this project we carried out intensive R & D activity regarding the application of this new filler i.e Shungit in different rubber compounds and presented the findings in different conferences in India, China, Korea, Japan, Malaysia etc. as well as published a number of Papers with these findings in different journals form India , USA (Rubber World ), China & Korea. This work took us to all these countries and Russia repeatedly to meet different rubber industry, including leading tyre companies of China, Korea (Kumho & Nexen Tire ) , Japan (Yokohama, Toyo & Bridgestone ) to hold detail technical discussion and making presentation about the product to these companies. Sampling of the filler were done to all these companies over a period of time who carried out Laboratory evaluation to establish it’s suitability. In some cases large number of truck tyres were made and sold to actual users to get feedback of it’s performance. Similarly, in India the product was evaluated in number of non-tyre products and had good response. Visits and samplings were made to different non-tyre product manufacturing companies in Malaysia with whom detail discussions were held to explain the suitability of the product as well as cost saving possibility.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
RUBBERY LIFE PART-V
RUBBERY LIFE : PART-IV
RUBBERY LIFE PART -IV
Modi Rubber Ltd. period
In the end of 1979, I moved from Bombay to Modipuram ( about 8 km from Meerut ), where the tyre plant of Modi Rubber Ltd. was set up few years earlier. I joined as Technical Consultant and later became Technical Manager of the company. Modi Rubber had a modern plant having technology collaboration with Continental AG, Germany. Tyres, mainly the truck tyres , of Modi Rubber were well established and accepted in the market, especially for heavy loading operation in northern belt.
When I joined Modi Rubber Ltd. Technical department was mostly controlled by south Indian group , mainly the Dunlop Ambattur people. Mr. A. Rajamani was then Technical Manager and production area was full with people from Goodyear headed by Mr. R.M. Rai as General Manager of the plant. There was mistrust and often hostility between these two groups. Goodyear Group was bigger and more powerful & had better accessibility to Managing Director ( Sethji ). When I joined MRL the northern group tried to drag me with them and the southern group was suspicious about me and did not extend co-operation to me. I tried to remain neutral between the two groups and maintained myself as a technical person . But neutral status in such situation was doubted by both group.
Mr. Rajamani was instrumental in bringing me in Modi Rubber as he needed some strong support from both rubber chemistry & technology as well as management angle. We had our first meeting in Chennai to avoid any pre-emptive rumor by the vested interest people. After finalizing all related points only I had a formal meeting with Mr. B.K. Modi, MD at Modipuram and subsequently joined Modi Rubber Ltd. end 1979.
At MRL there was freedom of work so long production volume and quality were not affected. There was no daily interference nor any interest in special work and research activity shown or appreciated by the management. Own interest and extra labour resulted in our R & D achievements. Some of my colleagues like Mr. S.K. Mustafi, Mr. L.K.Mathur , Mr. M. Mithal , Mr. Rijhwani also took active interest in different subjects and R & D activities.
After departure of Mr. Rajamani, I became Technical manager and the other member of ex-Dunlop group started creating problem in my functioning and ultimately most of them either had to be ushered out or left the company themselves.
Rheometry system of compound release
Modi Rubber had a well equipped laboratory and qualified staff. It was the first tyre company in India to introduce the compound release system through Rheometry in early 1980s , which was followed by other tyre companies much later. This was introduced during my time and we had bought seven Rheometers in early 1980’s for this system. This enabled us to release the compound at much faster speed compared to the conventional system of curing the slab followed by testing of certain physical properties before releasing the compound for the production.
In 1980 I spent longer period at Continental AG in Germany to learn and understand the Continental technology and system as well as the people involved with different aspects of tyre technology and manufacturing. With my German background and experience of earlier years in Germany I could develop good contact and friendship with many people in Continental which helped in later years for working in Modi Rubber.
Technical Department
When I became Technical Manager of Modi Rubber, the Technical Department was much broader and bigger compared to other tyre companies. The Technical department covered technical aspects of the plant, all laboratories (Chemical, Physical, Instrumental & Textile ), R & D, Field service, Tyre indoor & outdoor testing, Quality Control and Training Sections. It was a big department and contributed very effectively towards the development of tyre and it’s quality for more than a decade. After I shifted to head office at Delhi as Senior Manager, Corporate , the department was bifurcated.
1980’s and early 1990’s were highly successful and productive years for Modi Rubber. High quality of tyres with strong market acceptance and high volume production – primarily truck tyres, enabled Modi Rubber to capture majority part of the tyre market, especially in northern India. In between , there was a slow down period for a year for the tyre industry which gave us impetus to develop new market and product.
A technical representative from Continental AG , Germany was stationed in the plant. Mr. Lange was a highly experienced person with amiable nature. He was friendly and witty and was ready to help. We had very good relationship all these years and worked together to achieve the goal. He was a heavy smoker and good Beer drinker. Unfortunately he died of cancer after some time on return to Germany.
During this time Continental took over General Tire, USA with all plants world-over and had surplus staff in some of the plant. Mr. Lange went back to Hannover and was replaced by a Britisher ( Mr.Gregson ) from General Tire , UK plant. He was no match to Mr. Lange and hand typical British complex. Due to this, his relationship with most of the team was not comfortable. This, obviously, was not good for work and company. After some time I moved over to Delhi.
Export Tyre
We made a major break through in export market, especially for US market, with the newly developed lower weight special tyres for USA which was backed by technical service spread all over the countries wherever tyres exported. This development of export tyre was achieved in a record time. From the concept to the marketing of tyres after going through all types of development and testing was achieved within a year. The tyres were highly successful and we exported substantial quantity to USA over the years. This helped Modi Rubber to maintain production volume and run the plant in full capacity. This was a great achievement for the technical team of the company under my guidance.
Platinum Tyre
The greatest innovation of the decade , may be of all time , of Indian tyre industry was the development and introduction of “Platinum “ tyre. For the first time in Indian tyre industry a high performance truck tyre was developed with Silica and Silane coupling agent system which was a great success. At that time, this concept of usage of Silane coupling agent for heat resistant compound was being developed and tried with some of the passenger tyres in Europe , primarily by Degussa AG , Germany. I had long friendship with Mr. Siegfried Wolff , Chief of Technical Service and Development Department of Degussa and took up the matter with him as Degussa was the pioneer in Silane coupling agent ( Si 69 ) in the market. Joint development work was carried out with Degusa AG, Germany which was the sole manufacturer of Silane coupling agent in those years as it was holding the patent for the same. Technical Chief of Degusa AG, Dr. S Wolff was my personal friend from the Germany days who came forward to carryout special tests for the compound at Degusa’s laboratory. This was the first time ever Silica – Silane system was used for a heavy duty truck tyre in the world. Till then this system was used for passenger tyres, for so called green tyres. We presented the first Paper at the International Rubber Conference held at Jamshedpur in 1986 which was organized by IIT, Kharagpur in collaboration with IRI. Later, in IRCO Conference in Sydney, Australia in 1988 Dr. Wolff quoted our work and development in his Paper and lecture. This developmental work was highly appreciated in the knowledgeable circle. We were miles ahead of other tyre companies in this respect. Other tyre companies in India followed Modi Rubber by copying this at later years but could never match “Platinum” tyre till date.
R & D
R & D activity in Modi Rubber was in peak in this decade resulting in development of new products & new material usage as well as process development and publications in international & national Rubber Journals. In fact , publications of Research work and presentation in conferences were for the first time done in Modi Rubber under my leadership. This dried down after my departure from the company. Also we participated in different national & international conferences presenting our research work. These are all well recorded in the proceedings of these conferences.. We collaborated with reputed academic institutions like IIT, Delhi & Kharagpur , Roorkie University (now it is an IIT) and major raw material suppliers like Bayer, PIL, SRF etc. for such R & D activities and made joint publications for the research work. These institutions sent their M.Tech. / MSc. / PhD students for research work to our laboratory under our joint guidance. In this way Modi Rubber helped many students for their Degrees during my period which unfortunately my successors were not capable to continue.
Modi Rubber days were highly active period and with varied experience. It involved journeys to many countries in different part of the world – for new product development, procurement of new machinery & testing equipment & raw material , field service and tyre performance, meeting major dealers for market feeling, to raw material suppliers and development of new source etc., covering from USA, Europe, Middle East to Japan and the then USSR for new project.
An incidence with Internal Mixer
New experience in the plant and development of technology enriched our knowledge. When the chamber of one of the internal mixer was changed to new one, we encountered unforeseen problem. Along with the master batch water droplet were also falling on the dump-mill during discharge of the batch. Obviously, doubts were that the water is coming from leakage somewhere in the machine. A thorough check was conducted but no clue found. In the mean time, production from this mixer stopped and pressure mounted. In consultation with our Advisor Dr. Atma Ram arrangement was made with BARC for short life radio active Cobalt 60 which was mixed in the closed loop of the cooling water system of the mixer and circulated to find any leakage by testing radio activity of the water droplets. No radio activity was found on these water droplets. Finally, we could conclude that due to improved cooling effect of the new chamber, moisture evaporating from rubber and carbon black during mixing was condensing back causing water traces on the master batch. This was a great novel experience as well relief of the tension.
This further led to the study – what will be the effect of moisture on sulfenamide accelerators used in the compound which are sensitive to moisture, on the cure characteristics of the compound. An elaborate study was carried out in collaboration with Bayer India which resulted in publications in Kautschuk U Gummi Kunststoffe.
Moving to Delhi for Corporate function
In those years facilities available ( furnished housing, air conditioned cars, club facility, CCTV, guest house facility etc. ) with Modi Rubber were far above the industry level. However, the management system was on adhoc basis which was a hindrance to professional working. In any organization there are stooges to management which always created problem for sincere professional people who do not aim to please management but is dedicated to the cause of the work and the company.
After switching over from factory life and technology development activity to the corporate function, my main job was to diversify into major projects other than tyre. Most important of these was the Butyl Rubber Project which was in the range of Rs.300 Crore in those days. Major hurdle for the project was technology provider as only two companies i.e. Exxon in USA & Polysar in Canada had the technology and refused to collaborate for the manufacture of Butyl rubber in India. They had enough capacity in different plants and was interested to sell the rubber in India. At that time, more than twenty years back, the consumption of butyl rubber in the country was around 18,000 MT / year.
We could establish the technology source with the only other manufacturer of butyl rubber other than Exxon & Polysar and entered into an agreement with Russian manufacturer ( Nizhnekamsk Neftekhim in Tatar Republic ). We also reached an agreement with the Russian synthetic rubber manufacturing plant design Institute, Gipro Kautshuk , Moscow for plant & equipment and project design with all specification and suppliers of the machinery etc. In between we tied up with PICUP, Lucknow and Indian Oil Refinery, Mathura for feed stock supply and finalised the land at Kosi near Mathura for the project. The project activity in those years needed me to visit different parts of Russia ( at that time still USSR) many times. We also received the clearance from DGTD & Ministry of Petrochemicals for the project. With all these development we were at the verge of project implementation.
All these efforts for few years came to naught with the problems of Modi Rubber in early 1990’s which is a well known past. I do not wish to go into detail of this subject. Under this depressed scenario, I decided to leave the organization and resign & left Modi Rubber Ltd. by mid 1993.
In the end of 1979, I moved from Bombay to Modipuram ( about 8 km from Meerut ), where the tyre plant of Modi Rubber Ltd. was set up few years earlier. I joined as Technical Consultant and later became Technical Manager of the company. Modi Rubber had a modern plant having technology collaboration with Continental AG, Germany. Tyres, mainly the truck tyres , of Modi Rubber were well established and accepted in the market, especially for heavy loading operation in northern belt.
When I joined Modi Rubber Ltd. Technical department was mostly controlled by south Indian group , mainly the Dunlop Ambattur people. Mr. A. Rajamani was then Technical Manager and production area was full with people from Goodyear headed by Mr. R.M. Rai as General Manager of the plant. There was mistrust and often hostility between these two groups. Goodyear Group was bigger and more powerful & had better accessibility to Managing Director ( Sethji ). When I joined MRL the northern group tried to drag me with them and the southern group was suspicious about me and did not extend co-operation to me. I tried to remain neutral between the two groups and maintained myself as a technical person . But neutral status in such situation was doubted by both group.
Mr. Rajamani was instrumental in bringing me in Modi Rubber as he needed some strong support from both rubber chemistry & technology as well as management angle. We had our first meeting in Chennai to avoid any pre-emptive rumor by the vested interest people. After finalizing all related points only I had a formal meeting with Mr. B.K. Modi, MD at Modipuram and subsequently joined Modi Rubber Ltd. end 1979.
At MRL there was freedom of work so long production volume and quality were not affected. There was no daily interference nor any interest in special work and research activity shown or appreciated by the management. Own interest and extra labour resulted in our R & D achievements. Some of my colleagues like Mr. S.K. Mustafi, Mr. L.K.Mathur , Mr. M. Mithal , Mr. Rijhwani also took active interest in different subjects and R & D activities.
After departure of Mr. Rajamani, I became Technical manager and the other member of ex-Dunlop group started creating problem in my functioning and ultimately most of them either had to be ushered out or left the company themselves.
Rheometry system of compound release
Modi Rubber had a well equipped laboratory and qualified staff. It was the first tyre company in India to introduce the compound release system through Rheometry in early 1980s , which was followed by other tyre companies much later. This was introduced during my time and we had bought seven Rheometers in early 1980’s for this system. This enabled us to release the compound at much faster speed compared to the conventional system of curing the slab followed by testing of certain physical properties before releasing the compound for the production.
In 1980 I spent longer period at Continental AG in Germany to learn and understand the Continental technology and system as well as the people involved with different aspects of tyre technology and manufacturing. With my German background and experience of earlier years in Germany I could develop good contact and friendship with many people in Continental which helped in later years for working in Modi Rubber.
Technical Department
When I became Technical Manager of Modi Rubber, the Technical Department was much broader and bigger compared to other tyre companies. The Technical department covered technical aspects of the plant, all laboratories (Chemical, Physical, Instrumental & Textile ), R & D, Field service, Tyre indoor & outdoor testing, Quality Control and Training Sections. It was a big department and contributed very effectively towards the development of tyre and it’s quality for more than a decade. After I shifted to head office at Delhi as Senior Manager, Corporate , the department was bifurcated.
1980’s and early 1990’s were highly successful and productive years for Modi Rubber. High quality of tyres with strong market acceptance and high volume production – primarily truck tyres, enabled Modi Rubber to capture majority part of the tyre market, especially in northern India. In between , there was a slow down period for a year for the tyre industry which gave us impetus to develop new market and product.
A technical representative from Continental AG , Germany was stationed in the plant. Mr. Lange was a highly experienced person with amiable nature. He was friendly and witty and was ready to help. We had very good relationship all these years and worked together to achieve the goal. He was a heavy smoker and good Beer drinker. Unfortunately he died of cancer after some time on return to Germany.
During this time Continental took over General Tire, USA with all plants world-over and had surplus staff in some of the plant. Mr. Lange went back to Hannover and was replaced by a Britisher ( Mr.Gregson ) from General Tire , UK plant. He was no match to Mr. Lange and hand typical British complex. Due to this, his relationship with most of the team was not comfortable. This, obviously, was not good for work and company. After some time I moved over to Delhi.
Export Tyre
We made a major break through in export market, especially for US market, with the newly developed lower weight special tyres for USA which was backed by technical service spread all over the countries wherever tyres exported. This development of export tyre was achieved in a record time. From the concept to the marketing of tyres after going through all types of development and testing was achieved within a year. The tyres were highly successful and we exported substantial quantity to USA over the years. This helped Modi Rubber to maintain production volume and run the plant in full capacity. This was a great achievement for the technical team of the company under my guidance.
Platinum Tyre
The greatest innovation of the decade , may be of all time , of Indian tyre industry was the development and introduction of “Platinum “ tyre. For the first time in Indian tyre industry a high performance truck tyre was developed with Silica and Silane coupling agent system which was a great success. At that time, this concept of usage of Silane coupling agent for heat resistant compound was being developed and tried with some of the passenger tyres in Europe , primarily by Degussa AG , Germany. I had long friendship with Mr. Siegfried Wolff , Chief of Technical Service and Development Department of Degussa and took up the matter with him as Degussa was the pioneer in Silane coupling agent ( Si 69 ) in the market. Joint development work was carried out with Degusa AG, Germany which was the sole manufacturer of Silane coupling agent in those years as it was holding the patent for the same. Technical Chief of Degusa AG, Dr. S Wolff was my personal friend from the Germany days who came forward to carryout special tests for the compound at Degusa’s laboratory. This was the first time ever Silica – Silane system was used for a heavy duty truck tyre in the world. Till then this system was used for passenger tyres, for so called green tyres. We presented the first Paper at the International Rubber Conference held at Jamshedpur in 1986 which was organized by IIT, Kharagpur in collaboration with IRI. Later, in IRCO Conference in Sydney, Australia in 1988 Dr. Wolff quoted our work and development in his Paper and lecture. This developmental work was highly appreciated in the knowledgeable circle. We were miles ahead of other tyre companies in this respect. Other tyre companies in India followed Modi Rubber by copying this at later years but could never match “Platinum” tyre till date.
R & D
R & D activity in Modi Rubber was in peak in this decade resulting in development of new products & new material usage as well as process development and publications in international & national Rubber Journals. In fact , publications of Research work and presentation in conferences were for the first time done in Modi Rubber under my leadership. This dried down after my departure from the company. Also we participated in different national & international conferences presenting our research work. These are all well recorded in the proceedings of these conferences.. We collaborated with reputed academic institutions like IIT, Delhi & Kharagpur , Roorkie University (now it is an IIT) and major raw material suppliers like Bayer, PIL, SRF etc. for such R & D activities and made joint publications for the research work. These institutions sent their M.Tech. / MSc. / PhD students for research work to our laboratory under our joint guidance. In this way Modi Rubber helped many students for their Degrees during my period which unfortunately my successors were not capable to continue.
Modi Rubber days were highly active period and with varied experience. It involved journeys to many countries in different part of the world – for new product development, procurement of new machinery & testing equipment & raw material , field service and tyre performance, meeting major dealers for market feeling, to raw material suppliers and development of new source etc., covering from USA, Europe, Middle East to Japan and the then USSR for new project.
An incidence with Internal Mixer
New experience in the plant and development of technology enriched our knowledge. When the chamber of one of the internal mixer was changed to new one, we encountered unforeseen problem. Along with the master batch water droplet were also falling on the dump-mill during discharge of the batch. Obviously, doubts were that the water is coming from leakage somewhere in the machine. A thorough check was conducted but no clue found. In the mean time, production from this mixer stopped and pressure mounted. In consultation with our Advisor Dr. Atma Ram arrangement was made with BARC for short life radio active Cobalt 60 which was mixed in the closed loop of the cooling water system of the mixer and circulated to find any leakage by testing radio activity of the water droplets. No radio activity was found on these water droplets. Finally, we could conclude that due to improved cooling effect of the new chamber, moisture evaporating from rubber and carbon black during mixing was condensing back causing water traces on the master batch. This was a great novel experience as well relief of the tension.
This further led to the study – what will be the effect of moisture on sulfenamide accelerators used in the compound which are sensitive to moisture, on the cure characteristics of the compound. An elaborate study was carried out in collaboration with Bayer India which resulted in publications in Kautschuk U Gummi Kunststoffe.
Moving to Delhi for Corporate function
In those years facilities available ( furnished housing, air conditioned cars, club facility, CCTV, guest house facility etc. ) with Modi Rubber were far above the industry level. However, the management system was on adhoc basis which was a hindrance to professional working. In any organization there are stooges to management which always created problem for sincere professional people who do not aim to please management but is dedicated to the cause of the work and the company.
After switching over from factory life and technology development activity to the corporate function, my main job was to diversify into major projects other than tyre. Most important of these was the Butyl Rubber Project which was in the range of Rs.300 Crore in those days. Major hurdle for the project was technology provider as only two companies i.e. Exxon in USA & Polysar in Canada had the technology and refused to collaborate for the manufacture of Butyl rubber in India. They had enough capacity in different plants and was interested to sell the rubber in India. At that time, more than twenty years back, the consumption of butyl rubber in the country was around 18,000 MT / year.
We could establish the technology source with the only other manufacturer of butyl rubber other than Exxon & Polysar and entered into an agreement with Russian manufacturer ( Nizhnekamsk Neftekhim in Tatar Republic ). We also reached an agreement with the Russian synthetic rubber manufacturing plant design Institute, Gipro Kautshuk , Moscow for plant & equipment and project design with all specification and suppliers of the machinery etc. In between we tied up with PICUP, Lucknow and Indian Oil Refinery, Mathura for feed stock supply and finalised the land at Kosi near Mathura for the project. The project activity in those years needed me to visit different parts of Russia ( at that time still USSR) many times. We also received the clearance from DGTD & Ministry of Petrochemicals for the project. With all these development we were at the verge of project implementation.
All these efforts for few years came to naught with the problems of Modi Rubber in early 1990’s which is a well known past. I do not wish to go into detail of this subject. Under this depressed scenario, I decided to leave the organization and resign & left Modi Rubber Ltd. by mid 1993.
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