KLINGER is strengthening its position in India with a new subsidiary to reduce order lead times and improve customer support.
With robust demand for gaskets across multiple industries, customers in India have long been familiar with the KLINGER family of products. The country’s emergence as a global manufacturing hub has challenged suppliers to keep up with high product demand, and post-pandemic supply chain issues have strained resources even further than before. While already holding a minority stake in a manufacturing joint venture in India via Uni Klinger Limited (UKL), KLINGER decided that a subsidiary located just outside Bengaluru would drastically shorten order lead times, additionally providing a service presence for troubleshooting and customer support.
India is home to one of the largest motorcycle and automobile manufacturing sectors in the world. This industry relies heavily on rubber coated steel that is used to produce cylinder head gaskets and noise absorbing shims for disc brake pads. KLINGER’s product offering in this sector is Polystrat. Because only a few facilities are set up for the time and cost intensive production process that Polystrat requires, availability in the past was often at the mercy of the global shipping crisis. Local stocking will allow KLINGER to make this key product readily available to the Indian market, with little to no lead time.
While Uni Klinger will continue to market its Indian-made products under their own brand such as UniSIL, KLINGER India will be servicing large gasket manufacturers and OEMs with EU-made quality products without intermediates. Another popular product in India, KLINGERSIL, is a fiber reinforced gasket material with high sealability and strong chemical resistance.