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.
A very lucid and honest account of the days spent with Modi Rubber Limited and the work done for the technical professionals related with tyre and rubber.
ReplyDeleteThough you had left hope with MRL in 1993,but it is almost a miracle that the same company is still running successfully even after closure for eight years and reflections of your contributions are visible still.
My best wishes for all that you are doing.
Regards,
M.P.Tyagi
Thanks for your brief but nice comment. I still cherish my association days with all of you. Wish all the best to you and your colleagues in your endeavour in bringing up MRL.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Dr. SNC