Defying Odds – Mohan Spintex’s endurance and the role played by Prashant Group Machinery

The company’s consistently excellent performance over the years has earned it a good name in terms of both reliability and superior product quality

Venigalla Leela Krishna, Sr. Vice President (Operations), and Sudhakar Chowdary, Managing Director, Mohan Spintex

Having been established in 2005, the journey undertaken by Mohan Spintex, spanning almost two decades, is one of growth, perseverance, and resiliency. Having made a name for itself in the global market in the realm of home textiles, Mohan Spintex has demonstrated exponential growth within a small period, now boasting complete integration of spinning, weaving, processing, and home textiles. An interview with Managing Director Sudhakar Chowdary Vallabhaneni has provided insights into exactly what the driving factors behind the company’s success have been.

In the current fiscal year, the company has been performing exceptionally well, demonstrating a good turnover in the areas of spinning, weaving, processing as well as home textiles. However, this stability was achieved after facing many significant adversities over the years, the most devastating of which was the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, an unpredictable and dangerous time for businesses, the pandemic extracted a heavy toll on Mohan Spintex which made the future of the company rather uncertain. By September 2020, the company had incurred huge financial losses as well as a disastrous scarcity of buyers due to the frequent lockdowns by the central and state governments.

The large- scale panic that ensued was taken advantage of by many across the value chain, which contributed to a significant decrease in the price of cotton. In addition to this, their workforce, which comprises over 4,500 people, was in a state of disarray because of the pandemic situation, leading to numerous complications regarding functioning of their production units.

The chaos that ensued, however, began to subside after September 2020, with their production units beginning to show signs of returning to their previous standards of efficiency. Today, with the worst effects of the pandemic having come to pass, Mohan Spintex has grown exponentially and became a global player with its current capacity of 1,21,488 spindles with 100% compact spinning, 6,272 rotors, 4,800 TFO drums, 324 air jet looms (48 of which are specifically used for the manufacture of apparel while the rest are dedicated towards the manufacture of home textiles) and 1 lakh metres’ capacity in its continuous processing range plant.

Today, Mohan Spintex is a global player with state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities across multiple locations. The company employs nearly 4,500 people out of which 45% are women employees. Mohan Spintex has the capacity to produce over 2,500 tonnes of quality yarn, 28,50,000 meters of grey fabric, 28,50,000 metres of processed fabric and 4,50,000 sheet sets per month.

Chowdary Sri Sudhakar had started the company operations and developed the units in three locations in the districts, Vattigudipadu (Agiripalli Mandal), Remalle and Mallavalli (Bapulapadu Mandal). The first facility at Vattigudipadu was established with an investment of Rs 24 crore and the total investment made so far in all the three units together has reached an astonishing figure of Rs 1,000 crore. Mohan Spintex possesses a plethora of factors that makes it the first choice of many brands around the world, among these being its state-of-the-art composite production units, all of which carry out their processes independently. The company’s consistently excellent performance over the years has earned it a good name in terms of both reliability and superior product quality.

Due to this glowing reputation, they receive orders to export to companies in the USA, South America, Europe, as well as Australia. Additionally, major brands such as Target, Bed Bath and Beyond and many others are customers of theirs. They have aimed to achieve export sales turnover of Rs 400 crore against top-line of Rs 1,200 crore by FY22-23. Finally, the company’s initiatives towards ensuring sustainability in their manufacturing process only adds to their unique selling points. Some of these sustainability-centric initiatives are their implementation of zero liquid discharge technology as a means of wastewater management, installation of 10.40 MW rooftop solar panels in their existing units at an investment of around Rs 40.50 crore as an alternative power source and promotion of recycling and re-use of waste produced by their daily manufacturing process.

With quality textile machinery being a crucial part of the manufacturing process of any business in the textile industry, the question arises as to who the company buys its textile machinery from. Chowdary recalls that in 2016, Mohan Spintex was one of the first customers to purchase a direct warping machine from Prashant Westpoint for super fine yarn counts and was rather doubtful at the time. However, good communication, step-by-step explanation of the machinery and readily offered maintenance dispelled any doubts from the minds of those at Mohan Spintex, who soon came to regard Prashant Westpoint as a godsend company.

According to Chowdary, the machinery sold by Prashant Westpoint rivals even the best textile machinery currently available in the market, which prompted Mohan Spintex to purchase two more direct warping machines from them. Fostering good relations with Prashant Group, Chowdary holds them in the highest regard, and hasn’t looked back since first making the decision to buy from them. Mohan Spintex also entrusted Prashant Ferber Logistics Automation, the material handling division of Prashant Group, for 12 PLC-controlled fabric inspection machines including batch preparation machines, apart from a complete set of motorized and manual beam handling trolleys with satisfied performance for more than two years of operation.

Despite the industries’ rapidly growing interest in the areas of technical textiles and man-made fibres (MMF’s), Chowdary stated that the company made a very significant investment of Rs 400 crore in the year 2019-20 towards establishment of forward integration units of weaving, processing and made-ups and are only now beginning to reap the rewards of that investment. With the turbulence caused by the pandemic having subsided only recently, the company has managed to stabilize itself and focus on their current means of production. As such, there seem to be no plans for investments in any new areas for at least the next two years, but Chowdary did state that the company will certainly keep an eye out for significant trends worth venturing into.

When asked about where one could expect the company to be in five years’ time, Chowdary expressed a budding interest in MMFs and predicted a top-line of Rs 2,000 crore, which is more than double their current annual turnover. The sheer confidence and persevering attitude of the company, along with their continued association with a top-quality textile machinery manufacturer such as Prashanth Gamatex, has virtually assured their ascendency in the textile industry in the coming years.

“We at ‘MOHAN’ are committed to quality and excellent customer relations and services. We shall pursue world-class standards in process and products and shall maintain the highest ethical, moral, and professional standard in our business dealings.
– Sudhakar Chowdary, MD, Mohan Spintex

Prashant Group’s excellent communication skills, world-class machinery as well as swift and effective service support has cemented their position with us as a trusted partner from whom we plan to source our technology from in the coming years.
– Sudhakar Chowdary