Suryalakshmi Cotton commissioned a spinning unit comprising 10,000 spindles at Amanagallu in Andhra Pradesh in 1987. The company now has two units with 60,864 spindles to manufacture cotton, polyester and blended yarns.
Suryalakshmi Cotton integrated forward through a state-of-the-art denim unit in 1997 at Ramtek in Maharashtra. The company quadrupled its capacity to 40 million metres per annum across 15 years and has emerged as a major Indian denim manufacturer.
It commissioned a one-of-its-kind garment unit with an installed capacity of 5,000 garments per day in 2007 under a subsidiary called Suryakiran International Ltd.
Being vertically integrated along the value chain resulted in 75 per cent of the Denim Division’s yarn requirements being sourced captively, enabling the company to meet the demands of its customers faster with high-end quality products.
The denim plant is equipped with seven open-end machines (2,280 rotors) and 10 ring frames (12,000 spindles) to produce yarns. The company has 204 shuttleless air jet looms, and it produced 29.16 million metres of denim in 2011-12.
Suryalakshmi’s product range comprises mercerised, coated and colour denim. This addresses the varied requirements of diverse customers. The company’s value chain extends from yarn to denim to garments. Nearly 75 per cent of its yarn requirement for denim manufacture was produced in-house.
Suryalakshmi Cotton periodically updates products to address the changing customer requirements in line with the emerging trends. As much as 80 per cent of the company’s products in the Denim Division comprised value-added products. The company secured its raw material requirements for its textile unit through a back-to-back PSF sourcing arrangement with Reliance Industries and VSF with Grasim Industries Ltd. A major portion of the raw cotton required for the spinning unit associated with the denim plant was sourced from within 400 km.
The company invested in state-of-the-art equipment sourced from high-end manufacturers like Trutzschler, Toyota, Reed Chakwood Inc. and KTM USA, among others. Nearly 40 per cent of its spinning and weaving equipment were less than five years old as on March 31, 2012.
The company caters to reputed names like VF Corporation, Levis, Wal-Mart, Perry Ellis, Jones International, M&S, C&A, ASDA, George, Next, Miss Sixty, Mango, Carrefour, Sainsbury, Mothercare, Li & Fung and Woolworth.
The company turnover grew 11.28 per cent to Rs. 668.73 crores owing to a robust domestic and global demand for value-added denims and a strong performance of the denim segment. In 2011-12, the Denim Division accounted for 59.81 per cent of the revenues but 78.73 per cent of EBIDTA. Going ahead, it is planning to invest Rs. 200 crores on capacity expansion which will translate into revenues of Rs. 1,000 crores in turnover by 2014.
The company is now engaged in modernisation of its plants and progressive replacement of old looms. The result is that the revenues derived from assets commissioned during 2011-12 are expected to increase 8-10 per cent in 2012-13. The company also expects to expand its spindle capacity at Ramtek by 30,000 spindles to cater to the growing downstream requirements.
Over the years, the company invested in cutting-edge equipment comprising Trutzschler blow-room lines and cards, Laxmi high-speed combers, auto-leveller draw frames and speed and ring frames. It imported Schlafhorst and Murata autoconers as well as an Elgi Welker yarn conditioning unit.
This complement translated into high quality yarn. As a result, the company has improved yarn realisations by over one per cent. For the spinning unit integrated with denim manufacture, the company invested in OE spinning from Trutzschler, ring spinning from Zinser, Lycra spinning from Pinter and compact spinning from RoCoS. On the processing side, Suryalakshmi secured rope dyeing from Morrison, sheet dyeing from Jupiter and finishing from KTM and Morrison. The company products are at par with Uster standards, the spinning benchmark worldwide. The average spindle age is 5.3 years, producing optimum results.
Denim manufacturing
The denim manufacturing unit is vertically integrated, making it possible to accelerate product development with a product mix benchmarked with evolving trends. The company ensures that stringent processes are followed: skilled workforce, latest technology and extensive environment compliances.
This translated into growing orders from brands like Levis, VF and Wal-Mart, among others. The company’s other reputed international customers include George, Kohls and Jordache. Nearly 15 per cent of the company production was exported in 2011-12.
The company further invested in the best denim manufacturing technologies. For weaving, it invested in high-speed Toyota Airjet weaving machines with central computer control. It has now state-of-the-art international technologies which are the best considering the industry prospects.
Suryalakshmi invested also in a well-equipped physical fabric testing lab and spinning lab with the latest testing instruments like HVI, Usterquantum, Hunter lab and online shrinkage analyser, among others, ensuring a high raw material to final finished fabric quality. To strengthen the product, the company invested in multi-stage quality control and quality process control systems.
The company’s plant was approved by GOTS for organic denims, certified by Oekotex testifying that products were free from hazardous chemicals. The products were again certified by ISO and EMS 14000 by SQC for environmental standards. The plant was approved by BSR for social responsibility.
Fresh initiatives
The denim segment accounted for 60 per cent of the company’s revenues during the year under review. The company strengthened its business through the following initiatives during the year under review. It procured internationally accepted Amsler and Caipo slub making machines to enhance the special effect of its yarn used in manufacturing denim, installed one long chain beamer machine to increase capacity and produce different yarn varieties, and improved weaving strength by introducing Japanese Eurotech highspeed Airjet weaving machine.
Suryalakshmi is also installing compact spinning machine from the German manufacturer Rotocraft to improve yarn quality and another Lycra attachment machine from Pinter to increase the capacity of elastane yarn.
The average age of the company’s looms is 4.2 years. The company replaced 56 old looms with 59 new looms corresponding to superior operational speeds, value-added products and increased production per loom, superior waste recovery system to enhance material utilization.
Going ahead, Suryalakshmi expects to enhance production of value-added products and extend its global footprint. It aims to add more customers in Europe, the US and South America and reach more global brands with innovative products. An overall growth of 20 per cent is in international business is expected in 2012-13.