How PCPA is Helping Pune’s Plastic Manufacturers

The Pimpri Chinchwad Plastic Association is taking a whole range of measures to address issues of its members, including organizing best training, events, and ICT solutions for them. We spoke at length about the issues being faced and how they’re currently being addressed

Pune is the ninth-most populous city in India and second largest in Maharashtra after Mumbai. The city that was once the center of power of the Maratha Empire has now become the center of power for the manufacturing industries. This cultural capital of Maharashtra is one of the fastest growing cities in the Asia-Pacific region and one of India’s most important automotive hubs.

While the automotive industry hogs the limelight for Pune, there’s another industry that caters to the needs of all the other industries in Pune….and that is the Plastics industry. Every industry, be it automotive, consumer goods, engineering, medical, or cosmetic, every sector requires some plastic component or the other, which clearly indicates the importance of this industry.

We spoke to the president, vice president, and secretary of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Plastics Association (PCPA) of Pune—Yogesh Babar, Nitin Kondhalkar, and Ashwin Garg respectively to understand how the plastics industry in the region has been doing, and how their association was supporting it.

"We’re working for plastic manufacturers in our association, and our main agenda is to pick up their problems and help resolve them,”-Yogesh Babar, President, PCPA

PCPA started operations in 1995, and over the course of time, as the plastics industry expanded, the association also expanded its footprint in adjoining industrial areas like Chakan, Hinjawadi, etc. Today it actively works for the welfare of its members. “We’re working for these enterprises, and our main agenda is to pick up their problems and help resolve them,” said Yogesh Babar, President of PCPA. “So whether it’s anything to do with the MIDC, tariff hikes, manpower shortage, etc. we provide a common platform for our members,” he added.

Besides addressing local municipal related issues, PCPA is also actively engaged in negotiating the best deals for its members, be it for getting ISO certifications, organizing specialized raw materials training, or even identifying the right ICT products. The association regularly conducts a lot of activities like events, technical seminars, etc. and even has a website where members can enroll for buyer and seller meetings.

Business Challenges of Association Members

“Cost is a very important factor for us, so a cloud solution that’s cost effective and saves us so that we can be profitable is what we need,” --Nitin Khondalkar, Vice President, PCPA

A key issue facing the plastics industry in Pune is achieving business growth, according to PCPA. Insufficient liquidity in the market and an overall negative market sentiment doesn’t help either. According to Ashwin Garg, secretary, PCPA, “Companies have to upgrade technologically to compete globally. They have to manage their costs and ensure timely delivery. The infrastructure becomes a major concern in such a situation.”

ICT awareness

Less than 20% of the PCPA association’s members are currently using an ERP package, while the remaining are mostly using PCs with accounting packages like Tally. A lot of the association’s members are looking for good, cost effective solutions like ERP on cloud, where they can control their business. “Cost is a very important factor for us, so a cloud solution that’s cost effective and saves us so that we can be profitable is what we need,” said Nitin Khondalkar. “Besides that, we’re looking for IT solutions that are effective and with reasonable cost,” he added.

“Companies have to upgrade technologically to compete globally. They have to manage their costs and ensure timely delivery. The infrastructure becomes a major concern in such a situation.”--Ashwin Garg, Secretary, PCPA

Cost is not the only concern for the local manufacturers. Even if companies do manage to go for a cloud based ERP, they’re not able to leverage it to its full potential because of Internet bandwidth issues in the region. Broadband providers, are you listening? “Even though some vendors have come up with cloud based ERP, it’s highly dependent upon the broadband connection. Unfortunately, the quality of broadband is not very good in our area,” said Yogesh Babar.

Design is also important for most PCPA members, but the challenge there is that the design software licenses are very expensive and therefore beyond their reach. “Even if our members were to buy graphics workstations, they would not be able to use them as the software license costs are very high,” said Ashwin Garg. That’s why the association also has small companies who’ve setup their own dedicated design studies. All manufacturing companies outsource their design work to these studios.

Overall, the PCPA is doing everything it can to IT-enable its members, besides fighting to resolve their other problems.