Rewriting the rules

Set up in 1978, Indian oilfield equipment manufacturer Sara Sae Pvt Ltd has emerged as a key tool supplier to global giants. What sets the company apart is its willingness to rewrite the rules of business and take on global challenges.
“My father [Vijay Dhawan, now managing director] and his partner started this company,” says Samir Dhawan, technical director of Sara Sae. “They wanted to get into the oil and gas business.”

Sara Sae began exporting its products, developing ties with leading oil and gas companies. By 2007 the company had mustered enough cash to buy out majority equity partner National Oilwell Varco and was plotting a strategy to emerge as leader in its segment.
“The first thing we did was acquire US company Consolidated Pressure Control,” Dhawan says. “We then set up facilities in Singapore, Dubai and Oman.”
The company invested in a new machining plant, bought two forging units and set up a fully automated heat treatment plant.

“We wanted to follow two routes: to supply to the giants and to take our products to the next level,” Dhawan says. Sara Sae invested heavily in new machinery, turning to Sandvik Coromant for technological help. “We needed technology to compete on the global front,” he says. Sandvik Coromant had been a vendor in the past, and Dhawan was intrigued by the company’s Productivity Improvement Programme (PIP). Sandvik Coromant took on the challenge, entering into a partnership agreement with the Indian company. One of the first benefits was that Sara Sae was able to substantially reduce the time involved in making a hydraulic tong. “We got the time down to two hours and 30 minutes from 18 hours,” recalls Dhawan.

Dhawan is now focusing on setting up a technology innovation centre. “I always felt India as a nation does not innovate, and if we don’t innovate we can’t go anywhere,” he says. He has hired seven engineers from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and a designer from the National Institute of Design to develop the centre, which is open to the public.
“They will engineer processes and products irrespective of the field,” says Dhawan.

The company is now looking to set up bases in China and Russia, two key oil and gas markets. “To me it is very important that we manufacture globally,” says Dhawan.
The company plans to concentrate on expanding its global footprint. “Wherever there is drilling, we will be there,” he says.

Manufacturing hydraulic tongs has become a cakewalk for workers at Sara Sae, thanks to the Sandvik Coromant Productivity Improvement Programme (PIP).
“It used to take 16 to 18 hours to make a hydraulic tong, but the introduction of PIP has cut the time down to just over two hours,” says M Kandaswamy, general manager (manufacturing and process control) at Sara Sae.

Kandaswamy, who has spent a considerable time with the company, recalls the toil of workers to manufacture hydraulic tongs before PIP was introduced.

“Before we could barely make 14 or 15 tongs in a month, but now we can easily make 30 and also have excess capacity left,” says Kandaswamy.

Sandvik Coromant undertook a thorough review of the processes employed by Sara Sae from both the company’s and the workers’ viewpoints and then devised a programme that has made things much easier for the workers.
Samir Dhawan, technical director at Sara Sae, says initially there were some concerns about the programme. He recalls how the introduction of PIP knocked off eight machines and cut out downtime.

“The employees understood that it was for their own good,” he says. “The hardest to convince were the middle management, but once they had the feel of the programme they were convinced.”

PIP has triggered a shift in the work process and introduced massive productivity gains for the company, which aims to be a major global player in the tools business.

“Product quality has improved, cost per component has been reduced, and the workers are very happy,” says a pleased Kandaswamy.