Manufacturers who stopped buying European mills

Automotive Components · Hero Group

Rockman Industries replaced a 7 Crore Fuhr quote with a 2 Crore Kalpatech mill

Rockman, a flagship Hero Group company, needed flat wire held to plus or minus 0.003 mm, a tolerance the industry believed only premium European mills could reach. Fuhr of Germany quoted 7 Crores.

Kalpatech proposed a dancerless mill at 2 Crores, a 71 percent saving. The answer to the precision question was technology, not compromise: patented dancerless operation, Yaskawa motion control with nanosecond response, tungsten carbide tooling at 72 HRC, and a closed loop system capable of Cpk above 2.00.

The mill went in during 2014. More than a decade later it still holds the same accuracy, with zero major component failures. The only replacements have been standard wear parts.

Parameter	Fuhr (Germany)	Kalpatech
Capital cost	7 Crores	2 Crores
Accuracy achieved	Plus or minus 0.003 mm	Plus or minus 0.003 mm
Motion control	Standard PLC	Yaskawa, nanosecond response
Years in operation	Reference	10+ since 2014
Major failures	Reference	Zero

Automotive · Circlips and Retaining Rings

Star Circlips replaced a Fuhr mill and grew its product range

Star Circlips relied on a Fuhr mill, the standard for circlip wire. As demand grew, the Fuhr mill could not handle the larger cross section profiles their customers wanted, and another European mill meant another large capital outlay with no guarantee on future sizes.

In 2022 they installed a Kalpatech dancerless mill at 70 percent lower cost. It delivered 30 percent higher throughput, ran with zero major failures, and produced larger profiles the old mill could not attempt. A cost saving decision became a revenue generating one.