GRIND MASTER MACHINES PVT. LTD.
The Kelkars: Milind, CMD and Mohini, Director Sales & Marketing of Grind Master Machines Pvt. Ltd. have successfully entrenched their firm as a global pioneer in the segments of micro finishing, robotic automation and abrasives...
They went through the grind zealously, with passion and trust in their innovative ideas. And their expertise bore fruit in the form of Grind Master – a company, wherein the husband-spouse duo of Milind and Mohini Kelkar commenced developing indigenous metal finishing machines from a rented garage at Aurangabad in 1984, employing one person. Until then, all metal finishing operations were performed manually, resulting in an unhealthy work environment, poor productivity and low quality of finish. Moreover, Aurangabad was low on business infrastructure.
The Kelkars - both production engineers from the famed Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (V.J.T.I) in Mumbai - put on their thinking caps and served up their innovation: the first cookware polishing machine for Nirlep. The results were heartening. This set the Kelkars onto the path of buffing and polishing, spurring Grind Master into the allied industries of deburring and belt polishing. It was in 2000, however, when the company found its scintillating métier: Micro-finishing. With a dedicated R & D team developing breakthrough technologies for over 30 years, the company has emerged as an ace exporter to China, UK, US, Mexico, Middle East and South-east Asia, selling over 4000 machines, worldwide.
Scion Sameer Kelkar, Executive Director, silver medallist from IIT Mumbai and Post Graduate of University of California at Berkeley, who joined Grind Master in 2010, has initiated new key technologies such as Dynamic Balancing and Robotic Automation. He says, “We are working towards becoming a global, family-owned but professionally managed company”.
Grind Glory
Milind: “As original equipment manufacturers, we are competing with top German and Japanese companies. And we are still the preferred choice for many global players, because of our unique approach: We not only sell the product, we sell the entire process as well.”
Mohini: “In 2009, we managed our first breakthrough in the Chinese car market supplying to BYD Motor Company. Against stiff competition, we also later started exporting to General Motors and French car manufacturer Peugeot Citroen.”
Winner Philosophy
Milind: “We believe in the policy that 100 – 1 = zero! Our brand is based on trust, innovation and expertise. If a customer gets one percent less from our expertise, it amounts to zero, for us.”
Mohini: “We have learnt to keep our private and professional lives separate. We believe that unless we have new ideas and utilise them, Grind Master cannot grow as a company.”