Rohm and Haas expand

The Chennai facility, located in the Sriperambudur industrial area of Tamil Nadu in South India, is opening with the capacity to make 30,000 to 40,000 metric tons a year of speciality materials used in the manufacture of paints and coatings, adhesives, textiles, paper and leather. The plant, which cost US$12 million to build, is a ‘zero discharge’ facility that meets very stringent environmental standards set by the state of Tamil Nadu. The Chennai facility will also operate under the company’s ‘21st Century’ programme which strives for reliable, cost-effective manufacturing facilities and a competent, motivated workforce continually focused on improvement. The company are also doubling the capacity of their 35,000 metric ton facility in Taloja, which is located near Mumbai in the state of Maharashtra. The combined capacity of Taloja and Chennai (100,000 to 110,000 metric tons per year) makes Rohm and Haas India’s largest and fastest-growing producer of environmentally advanced emulsions and additives for paints and coatings and other water-based polymer industries. ‘Put quite simply, our goal is to be the best speciality materials supplier in India’, says Harish Badami, president and managing director for Rohm and Haas India. ‘India is a critical component of our company’s overall growth strategy’, said Rohm and Haas chairman and CEO Raj L Gupta. ‘In fact, we believe more than 80% of our sales growth between now and 2010 will take place in the fastest-growing markets of the world – India, China, Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe.’ Rohm and Haas have been increasingly important participants in the Indian market since 1995, when the company opened their first sales offices in Delhi and Mumbai. The company expect to report US$100 million in sales revenue for India in 2007, and aim to more than double sales to $250 million over the next five years. Mark Douglas, vice president of Rohm and Haas and director of the Asia- Pacific Region, says the company are building a lasting infrastructure to support this growth, including plans for a process engineering and technical centre in addition to the two manufacturing facilities. ‘For example, Chennai and Taloja are not our largest facilitie’, he says, ‘but they have been built to incorporate the leading-edge environmental, management and operating practices that the company have developed elsewhere within their global manufacturing network, and at the same time can manufacture products customised for local markets. In India today, we have the capability to serve both large and smaller customers who can expect reliable, quality products to be delivered to their door time after time.’