Shawl production to double up

LUDHIANA: One of the prominent manufacturers of shawls in the country, city based Shingora shawls, is set to double up its production after setting up a new state of the art manufacturing facility.
Amit Jain, president, Shingora Textiles Limited and a resident of South City said the new manufacturing unit has been set up near Doraha in Ludhiana. Present production of the company is 10,000 meters a day and the new unit is expected to double the production taking it to 20,000 meters per day.The new facility sprawls 14 acres with the manufacturing unit covering 1.5 lakh square feet.
Automated machines in this unit have been imported from Italy, Germany and Switzerland. The unit is in its gestation period now and thus production is only 50% of total capacity, said Jain.
The unit, being automated, requires a work force of only 250 people which is half the strength required for running a traditional unit with this capacity.
Amit, 38, said he had joined the family business 15 years ago when the entire work was done in the traditional way and it took him a long time to revamp the working style in terms of infrastructure and culture as well.
"We moved to shuttle-less looms from handlooms, to soft flow machines from dyeing pots and pans and to digital printing from hand screen printing since I joined the firm and now I wish to revamp the marketing style,'' said Amit. He is now planning to spend more on branding as Amit thinks the shawl industry lacks in this sphere.
The foremost goal of the firm is to promote its Shingora brand of shawls and hence, 30% to 40% of production would be allocated to this brand. The first manufacturing facility of the firm is situated at Focal Point phase-6.