Mexico City — Indian mold maker Vasantha Tool Crafts Pvt. Ltd. has hired its first locally based service engineer for Mexico and Central America.
The man, whose name has not been disclosed for competitive reasons, was hired in early 2019. He works out of Mexico City and has 25 years' experience as a toolmaker, according to Eric Brenn, the company's sales representative for the region.
Brenn, who has worked for Vasantha since November 2014, said the specialist has accumulated 15 years' experience working on molds for the packaging industry in Mexico and Central America. Most of Vasantha's business in the region is with packaging processors.
The appointment gives Vasantha an advantage over its fiercest competitors, who have to fly in technicians from outside Mexico when the need arises, Brenn said, a claim Plastics News could not independently verify.
"We supply the most important converters in the packaging market in Mexico," he said without disclosing the number of Vasantha clients in the country. "We have one customer in Central America."
When Vasantha appointed Brenn to represent it, the Hydrabad-based company had just 14 molds in use in Mexico — all but one of which were sold by the company in India and not locally.
"Today, four years later, the total number of molds in Mexico and Central America is 55, and another four have been sold and are on their way," Brenn said. "That's a growth of 90 percent a year."
The company plans to consolidate within the packaging market, to grow in Central America and, looking further ahead, to enter the medical market in Mexico and Central America.
Brenn acknowledged in an interview that "considerable uncertainty" exists over how Mexico's economy will fare in 2019 and beyond.
Concern over the international economic landscape has turned into worries about the national economic landscape, he said, and forced current and potential customers to put investments on hold.
Despite this, he's optimistic about the Mexican economy and believes Vasantha's sales growth in the country will not falter.
Managing Director Dayanand Reddy founded Vasantha in 1989 and remains its sole owner. The company is among the top five mold makers for the packaging industry in Asia, according to Brenn. It manufactures 360 molds a year with a cavity range of 4-144.
It has three mold making plants in Hydrabad and half-owns another in Singapore.