Date:08/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/12/08/stories/2004120801400400.htm

Back Turel opens competence centre in Bangalore

Our Bureau

Bangalore , Dec. 7

THE Turel group has opened a competence centre for trouser manufacturing in Bangalore.

The Rs 87-crore garment machinery and total solutions major said the centre was the first in India and would support domestic manufacturers with information to efficiently manage various stages of production.

The competence centre will address the skill and talent gap in the garment industry at a time when the industry was readying itself for the quota-free trade regime from January 2005, according to Mr Viraf Turel, Mumbai-based Director of E.H.Turel & Co, and Mr Rusi K.Cooper, India Manager - Sales.

"While in the IT and BPO sectors we have an abundance of world class talent, the same is not true of the garment industry, which lacks significant manpower adequately exposed to cutting-edge machinery and solutions," Mr Turel said. The talent gap would become more acute as the industry moved towards greater automation and better technologies.

Turel, which is celebrating its golden jubilee year of operation in the country, aims to get revenue of over Rs 100 crore for fiscal year 2004-05, and the South is expected to contribute 70 per cent of this. It is also mulling setting up a manufacturing unit in Gurgaon.

According to Mr Cooper, Bangalore, as a garment making and export hub, was a natural choice to locate the competence centre. Spread over an area of 5,000 sft, the centre includes demonstration, training and technical support services and will provide consultancy related to machinery and technology to garment manufacturers. The solutions would include machine layout, planning and organisation from fabric designing to training of operators in maintenance of machines.

Turel has also unveiled a range of hi-tech sewing machinery that will automate the processes of fabric designing, cutting, sewing and finishing and significantly cut lead times.