Machinery maker A S Enterprises expands in northern India

Mumbai – A S Enterprises, which manufactures cutting and processing machines for polyurethane foam, has opened a second facility in Sonipat. This is in the north Indian state of Haryana, about 60km north of its existing site in New Delhi.

The company cited capacity constraints at the Delhi unit as the reason for the new investment. “The new state-of-the-art second site spreads over 100,000ft² and opened two months ago in October,” Anurag Purie, the company’s CEO, told Urethanes Technology International at the recent UTECH India show in Mumbai.

The Delhi plant has been operational for three decades, and will now focus on the manufacture of components, as well as functioning as the company’s HQ. The new unit in Sonipat will manufacture and assemble machines.

The company has introduced two new machines in 2024: a cutting machine and a high-pressure foaming line. The CCM S33 is a fully automatic circular carousel cutting machine, used to slice foam blocks into sheets with variable thicknesses.

The Neuflex foam line was designed for the large-scale continuous production of flexible PU foam blocks. It uses the liquid lay-down system for pouring the foam, with a high-capacity output of up to 500kg/min. It includes an industrial PC that offers features such as online colour, density and width change.

Purie said that there has been positive feedback in the domestic market to both machine, and it plans to launch them in Europe and the Americas. “We are in touch with few companies in these markets and are hoping for a breakthrough shortly,” he said. His company is not new to the European market – it was one of the first Indian companies to exhibit at UTECH Europe back in 1995.

Also in the company’s portfolio is a foam re-bonding machine. This was introduced three years ago, and makes bonded foam blocks from shredded foam scraps.

Purie said that price is one of the main reasons for its success in both domestic and international markets. “We are supplying a complete foaming plant at one-third of the price of competing American or European plant,” he said. “Performance-wise, our machines are on par with the best of the machines available globally.”

A S Enterprises has delivered 1400 foam cutting machines to about 400 companies in the past three decades, having launched India’s first commercially viable carousel foam-cutting machine in 1989. Last year, it sold about 125 foaming, handling and conversion lines to domestic and overseas customers. The company supplies EC and ANSI compliant machines to more than 40 countries in Europe and the US.