WeP sets up manufacturing unit in Himachal

WeP Peripherals Ltd has established its third manufacturing unit in the
country. Set up near Nalagarh in Himachal Pradesh, this is its first unit in the
north after the two manufacturing units based at Mysore and Hyderabad.

Talking about this new initiative, Ranbir Singh, GM (North), WeP, said,
"We have always been known as more of a southern company based out of
Bangalore with manu-facturing units at Mysore and Hyderabad. Our dealers too
were showing concern on the need to open a north India unit. Therefore, at the
begin-ning of the year we decided to start a unit in Himachal Pradesh because of
the in-centives that companies get there."

With the units based in South the lead time was high–seven to eight days
and the channel pressure was also there to start a unit in north so that there
is better material availa-bility. And with the central go-vernment allowances,
lack of red tapism and committed peo-ple, WeP found it opportune to start the
unit in Himachal.

Presently, the company has rented out premises near Nalagarh. But it is
looking for a place in Baddi, where it plans to move permanently and the former
will then function as a warehouse. On choosing the place over Parwanoo and Kalka,
Singh commented, "These two places are not big enough for us, therefore we
zeroed upon Nalagarh and will very soon shift to Baddi when all the government
formalities are complete."

He also informed that WeP has plans of vendor develop-ment and will be
locating most of its vendors here. "Most of our vendors were earlier
associated with us through sales but now with the putting up of this
manufacturing unit they have shown the desire to act as vendors now. This is a
good opportunity for people to get into manufacturing who were till now
connected with us through sales."

At this new unit, the comp-any will be initially manufac-turing DMPs and will
later on move on to manufacturing networking products as well. It has also
appointed the concerned staff for the Hima-chal unit who are currently
undergoing training in Mysore. Singh further added that by the end of this month
the first of the products would roll out of the unit.

Karma Negi

New Delhi