arklite speciality lamps ltd Management discussions

ARKLITE SPECIALITY LAMPS LIMITED ANNUAL REPORT 2007-2008 DIRECTORS REPORT It was later decided to transfer all manufacturing operations from Chennai to Chakan in order to consolidate everything under one roof. It became necessary to carve out a 100%-EOU at Chakan in order to take benefit of Govt. policies. Thus, we now have two separate units operating at Chakan. The operations at Chennai were suspended at the end of February 2008, and the machinery was shifted to Chakan in May. All machinery has been installed and commissioned at newly created EOU at Chakan in mid-June 2008. Thus, effective June 2008 your company has four manufacturing facilities in Chakan under one roof : two of them (MH lamps and GA-MBIL plant) in EOU, and other two (MH lamps and Quartz Ultraviolet, UV-Q) in domestic tariff area (DTA). This is very significant consolidation exercise, and is expected to bearfruits in near future. Current total manufacturing capacity of MH lamp is 75,000 lamps a month. Your Company sold over 600,000 MH lamps (last year sale was 427,000 MH lamps). The utilization could have been better had the Chennai production not been suspended during the last two months of the Year. Now, the focus of your Company is to reduce costs in orderto meet customers requirements. As for the UV-Q lamps, the sales were marginally lower than last year. The lower sales were due to some quality related issues, which have now been sorted out. The focus in this product range is on maintaining good manufacturing practice and expanding customer base. Your Company is hopeful of expanding sales of UV-Q lamps in near future in domestic as well as exports markets. The newly added range of GA-MBIL has opened an entirely new opportunities foryourCompany. During Jan.March 2008 period, your Company sold over 4,000 GA-MBIL on job-work basis. Your Company has negotiated with machinery supplier to market these lamps globally. The prospects are indeed very good. Your Company has redeemed the non-convertible debentures issued in March 1997 along with interest, amounting to Rs 67 lakh. The company has maintained its ISO 9001: 2000 certification during the Year.