Established in the year 1989, Mehta Cad Cam Systems Pvt. Ltd. is one of the oldest and the largest companies being engaged in the field of CNC, laser and digital printing technologies in India. Headquartered in Ahmedabad, Mehta does not only manufacture and bring the latest machines or technologies from different parts of the globe to India, but also develops arrays of applications, consumables, accessories and allied technologies.
It is around 10 years, since Mehta Cad Cam have started their manufacturing for different size and capacity of CO2 laser engraving and cutting machine, CNC router, fibre laser metal cutting machine, fibre laser marking machine, etc., which are not just limited to Indian territory, but also have been appreciated in different parts of world. Rapidly increasing demand especially of Mehta’s CNC and laser machines in India and outside, forced the company to enhance its manufacturing capability, recently.
Speaking to Sign & POP World, Shailesh Mehta, the company’s Director, delved deep in to how the company is readying to feed the market and how has been the current state of Indian signage industry. Here are the edited excerpts.
How is the new manufacturing unit going to help Mehta?
As of now, we are manufacturing around 70 machines every month. Keeping in view the growing needs of the industry, we have set up a huge factory and going to shift there from our two separate manufacturing units of Laser and CNC. Spread across 1,00,000 sq. ft., the facility would be capable of mass production so as too feed the rapidly increasing demand of our CNC and laser machines not only in India but abroad. Our new facility is going to be the most systematic, latest and advanced with international manufacturing standard, which will definitely improve the quality besides impeaching mass production of different machines. We are a 450-people team, astounding a well-established service network across the country to ensure uninterrupted service support to the customers. This is what Mehta is known for over two decades.
Being one of the leaders, how is Mehta positioned in the industry?
Since last 20 years, we are feeding the market with our CNC router and laser cutting machines. We have also been supplying quality digital printers to our valued clients. We have offices everywhere, catering to the needs of our customers spread across the country. We never thought that we are strong in a particular region or weak in the other. And if at any point in time, we feel something like this, we love to work there and enhance our presence to add to our strength.
However, we are not limited to India only, but have also serving the international market. We have now been making our presence outside India by appointing distributors in the overseas markets. So far, we have six distributors – one each in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Vietnam.
As I said, we have a huge team wherein the heads of every department are mainly focused on R&D. They keep looking for the innovations to help innovate in their respective departments. This is how we are moving together to lead the country’s signage industry. I am not interested in being the leader here, but better to be known as innovator.
Where does Mehta get an edge over its competitors?
We are one of the topmost ‘Make-In-India’ companies, competing purely with Chinese products. We further aim to bring down the prices of CO2 Laser and CNC Router machines to match with those being imported from China, but without sacrificing on quality front. This is the only way; we can help our Indian manufacturing grow up. We can easily restrict Chinese counterparts by fighting them tough on price, but without deteriorating the quality of our products. For all this, we needed to add quantum in our production to help us reduce the cost. With the new added capacity, we would be able to hit the target.
As of now what all Mehta’s infrastructure constitutes?
See, for now, we are importing a big bunch, but slowly we are converting them in to manufacturing in-house. This helps us continuously adding to our indigenous product portfolio time to time depending on the market requirements and the needs of our valued customers. Since, we are catering to a market which has an expanded base of future customers; we are in the process and hope to be ready with all in-house manufactured products right in time. Till then, we would keep bringing new technologies to India as and when required. Apart from CNC Router and Laser Cutting Machine, in digital printing which for now we are sourcing from our long term partner Gongzheng, our machines are getting much appreciation in the domestic as well as international markets.
How has been the impact of GST on Mehta’s trade?
Since we are manufacturers, we fall under specific tax slab that is of Excise Duty plus VAT – each levied at 12.50%. While the VAT was getting reimbursed, the Excise Duty never turned back. But with the implementation of GST, we fall under 18% tax slab, which is claimed back in full thus saving us for not less than 7.50%. This has ultimately brought down the costs for our customers. Also, this will facilitate cashless trading and maintaining a book of account would become inevitable irrespective of industries or sectors. Be they small or big, every one has to maintain the record of respective transactions. Besides all this, it will also put a cap on the unfair trade practices thereby bringing a level playing field for all.
How has Mehta seen the industry evolving?
I would say that in the last two decades of my presence in the industry, I have seen it transforming from a standstill to moving one. India has become an international market place. We can now very well observe the speed here. Unlike being treated as the dumping ground for the outdated technology from the developed countries, we are now getting the taste of the most modern technologies at the same time as Europeans or Americans are. Also, the awareness level of people has surged drastically. They are more inquisitive about the technologies that are getting introduced around the world. The acceptance level has also improved as people here are now open to new technologies without any fear of failure. Meanwhile, innovations are going all-round and I am happy that we are not lagging on this front.
How has the industry responded to this transition? What kept Mehta on the top of it?
In the past, there were quite a few big players but due to some reasons or the other they got reduced to operate on regional level. Only a few maintained their national presence keeping their focus intact on each product catering to almost every segment. I can say that we are one among the latter to have kept ourselves on the run with regular upgradation, and in turn, adding to our strength by imbibing innovations. We always hold our grip tight by introducing latest technology at certain interval.
We supply the most updated technologies in CNC and Laser, while for digital printing we are always trying to bring the best to the market. Our principal Gongzheng, the company known for introducing Starfire heads to the signage world and with whom we are in partnership from last 15 years, has also grown up to become one of the leading technology players in the world. We together keep striving to develop new technologies to bring the best to our valued customers in India and abroad.
How important is the service? What provision do you have?
Ever since our presence in the industry, we have been maintaining strict commitment to offer instant service supports besides giving detailed trainings to our customers’ operation team. We do arrange spare parts instantaneously to help our customers run hassle-free for years quite effectively and to the fullest of satisfaction. Customer counselling is a key practice at Mehta Cad Cam Systems. Before selling any machine to a customer, we try to understand the actual need of the buyer. This gives us a clear-cut idea to provide optimum solutions which directly help our customers sustain and grow their business in the current competitive market.