Page 39 - Glass Machinery Plants & Accessories no. 3/2017

INDIAN DIASPORA AND of China. India today is where so automation is not yet a prior-
RAPID PROGRESS China was 20 years ago; it has ity. Investment is going to form-
One of the advantages that low labour costs and greater ing machines. For Chinese com-
India has is that many of its energy in getting things done. panies competing with Europe,
workers, although working in China today has moved on to the the priority is forming machines
glassworks that are backward next stage of development and is and automated lines.
technologically, have experience trying to produce at European It is no longer true that Indians
of working outside India in much quality level with labour costs are more interested in second-
more modern companies. For which, though not yet as high as hand machines than new ones.
instance, many of the people that Europe’s, are higher than India’s. Although bargain used machin-
I met in India have had expe- India is now substituting China ery will always be snapped up,
rience in European companies, while the Chinese are trying to the emphasis is on quality prod-
and so could transfer the culture substitute European products. ucts and quality machinery, so
that they found there, and this investment is in new machines.
made them much more flexible CHINA COMPETES The case of Borosil Hopewell
than workers in other countries. WITH EUROPE is significant; they changed
This is an advantage for compa- Today China is one of the from Chinese to more expensive
nies who want to invest in India countries where we are working European machines because that
because they can find a pool of best; we are working very well is where the quality is. There is a
workers who have been work- with Chinese companies in devel- considerable difference in price
ing abroad with quality com- oping automated lines which even but there is also considerable
panies and already have quality Europeans plants do not have. difference in the efficiency and
culture. Workers returning from For instance, we have developed lifetime of the machinery. The
the Diaspora will help India to the first fully automated pack- results speak for themselves in
grow quickly. One of the com- aging line for stemware with a the case of La Opala.
mon drawbacks in development Chinese client. Today, Chinese
is a lack of working culture where companies are investing in qual- SOME THOUGHTS
sophisticated modern technology ity and efficiency at European ON THE LEAPING TIGER
is unable to function because level, and although they still have A major problem of Chinese
the workforce does not have the a lot of labour at the cold end, in machinery is their short lifetime
work culture to match it. India inspection and packaging, they and inefficiency. Lifetimes as
has a large reserve of workers are cutting down on this by auto- short as two years, together with
around the world who can return mating complete lines. In Europe, a lot of downtime for mainte-
and enable rapid development discrete areas of the process have nance, lack of spares and even
once investments are ready. been automated but not entire the disappearance of the sup-
Production at present is low lines. For the moment, India has plying company altogether, are
compared to the potential market much lower labour costs and is at not unknown. This is true not
of the population, but there is a an earlier stage of development, just in India but in many coun-
capacity to develop very quickly
given the right conditions, as
the example of La Opala shows:
starting from scratch only ten
years ago, today it has achieved
almost a monopoly on opal glass
in India, is quoted on the Stock
Exchange and is setting new
trends in company organization.

INDIA A NEW CHINA
Apart from its domestic mar-
ket, India has considerable export
potential in its immediate neigh-
bours Pakistan and Bangladesh,
in South East Asia and in Africa
and the Middle East. This is
due in part to the development