1 The Sanmar Group 9, Cathedral Road, Chennai 600 086. Tel.: + 91 44 2812 8500 Fax.: + 91 44 2811 1902 Sanmar Holdings Ltd Sanmar Consolidations Ltd Chemplast Sanmar Ltd Sanmar Shipping Ltd TCI Sanmar Chemicals S.A.E. Cabot Sanmar Ltd Sanmar Speciality Chemicals Ltd Sanmar Engineering Technologies Ltd - Products Divn. Flowserve Sanmar Ltd BS&B Safety Systems (India) Ltd Sanmar Engineering Services Ltd Xomox Sanmar Ltd Xomox Valves Divn. Pacific Valves Divn. Tyco Sanmar Ltd - Steel Castings Divn. Sanmar Foundries Ltd Matrix Metals LLC 2 In this issue... 4 16 19 Spotlight 21 Turning Freshers into 4 Performers - Training The Sanmar way Events ‘Trade arrangement with India will boost business 9 ties’- Seminar on Emerging Sporting Sanmar Beyond Sanmar Business Opportunities in Egypt Spotting talent from ‘Coming Together’ at across India - 19 Madhuram Narayanan “Aligning Employee 14 New TNCA rules boost Centre Relations with Business Jolly Rovers’ efforts CSR activities at Strategies”- 20 Chemplast Cuddalore 10 B Visweswaran’s address Jolly Rovers CC wins the and Karaikal 16 VAP Trophy at the EFSI National IR Chemplast’s spoken Conference Sanmar-TNTA League English programme at Mettur Chemplast partners 17 title retained by MCC District Administration in 21 New batch at Chemplast 12 mock off-site emergency People and Places Mettur tailoring training centre drill at Karaikal Ninth Danish Consular Conference at Copenhagen - Legends from the South Training programme on 18 An eyewitness account 13 oil pollution preparedness by SB Prabhakar Rao 22 Raja Ramanna Matrix can be viewed at www.sanmargroup.com Designed and edited by Kalamkriya Limited, 9, Cathedral Road, Chennai 600 086. Ph: + 91 44 2812 8051/ 52 For Private Circulation Only. 3 Turning Freshers into Performers Training The Sanmar way Sanmar has always believed in The HR strategy at Sanmar insists Karaikal, Berigai, Viralimalai and Spotlight selecting people with the most that all positions at the entry level Karapakkam. appropriate academic and career must be filled with freshers from In addition to providing all-round credentials and training them college, recruited and trained in- technical training, the impetus from to fit the specific needs of its house. This means there is no lateral Day 1 is on inculcating organisational various businesses. For example, recruitment for entry level positions. values. The Sanmar culture and the a programme to train graduate Sanmar has generally encouraged the Sanmar way of doing things are engineer recruits fresh out of college hiring of local talent for junior and essential parts of the diet so provided. was put in place in the early years senior positions to enhance work-life of Sanmar Engineering when it balance and create an invigorating The flagship Sanmar Engineering was a single product company workplace leading to a healthy GET training programme has its manufacturing Durametallic relationship with the community origins in 1981, much before the mechanical seals. The programme and its holistic development. Hence, SR Seshadri Training Institute has continued successfully through campus recruitment is done not just came into existence in 2007. “The the decades. Similar training courses at city colleges but also from rural success of the programme is that have been and continue to be held catchment areas and the recruits managers belonging to the first at Chemplast’s chemical plants at are trained in Sanmar plants across batch of GETs are still with us, one Mettur and Cuddalore. locations - at Mettur, Cuddalore, a Business Manager and the other V Ramesh with GETs during a lecture session at Karapakkam. 4 the Engineering Head of Flowserve structured training programme and process, including the campus Sanmar”, exults V Ramesh, a Sanmar also to perpetuate the memory of SR recruitment seamless, he wanted veteran, who is now mentoring Seshadri, a prime mover of Sanmar the recruitment process also to be Training the Training Managers at SRSTI. Engineering and The Technical Guru attached to the institute. Thus, The programme, soon acquired a for many of those who rose to hold through dedicated HR resources leadership positions in the various pan-Indian character, with fresh attached to the institute, SRSTI engineering graduates being hired businesses. Two years down the line, takes care of recruitment of trainees from all over the country to be it was felt that this initiative should as well. Not just recruitment, trained as Sales Engineers for the be strengthened and institutiona- evaluation and mentoring the various SETL products. lised further on a much larger scale and this saw the emergence of SRSTI trainees are also done. Over the years, with additional in its current avatar as an excellent The infrastructure for SRSTI was training initiatives, several new training facility that brings under initially built at Karapakkam and programmes have been added. The one umbrella structured and intense has expanded to Viralimalai where number of training programmes has training of freshers recruited from the Sanmar Engineering valve gone up sharply to about 16 per year renowned colleges. The institute companies and foundries are located and the number of persons to be serves as a preparatory set up to and to Mettur to cater to the training trained has gone up from an annual bootstrap freshers with specific number of about 30 to nearly 150! training to take on positions in the needs of Sanmar’s chemical plants. When Sanmar flagged off SRSTI in various companies and divisions of All of Sanmar’s training centres are The Sanmar Group. September 2007, it was to integrate equipped with excellent classroom these programmes under one roof When N Sankar articulated his facilities, library and computer based and meet a growing need for a vision, in order to make the whole training materials. Assembly and testing facilities for SETL products at Viralimalai. 5 Significantly, in the seven years of its existence, SRSTI has grown from one Training programmes at SRSTI or two programmes for Graduate/ Diploma Engineer Trainees, now • Graduate Engineers – Electrical, Instrumentation at to offer sixteen different training Mechanical, Electrical, Engineers’, Supervisory and programmes covering – Chemicals, Chemicals & Instrumentation Operating levels Engineering, Foundries and • Diploma Engineers – Engineering Spotlight Common Accounts. Mechanical, Electrical, • Sales (Pan India), Operations – Chemicals & Instrumentation The institute has a team of ten Product Engineering, Planning, • Masters in Science & Commerce Procurement, Production & professional managers with over Quality 100+ years of total experience in Training programme covers various various products, processes, plants, functions: Foundry business systems in chemicals and Chemicals • Foundry Operations – Sand engineering. This is in addition • Plant Operations, Plant Foundry, Investment Foundry to the professional teaching and Maintenance – Mechanical, • Product development in Foundry training faculty, who are experts drawn from different fields and functions. They have rich experience A hallmark of the training at SRSTI The trainees develop result-oriented in manufacture, engineering services is its emphasis on ‘application’, projects on the shop floor and come and operation of chemical plants. opportunity for the GETs to work up with practical solutions in specific Sometimes, experienced managers on live problems in the plants areas such as cost improvement, waste who have retired from Sanmar are during their in-plant training and reduction, cycle time reduction, and hired to conduct classes. during their on-the-job training. development of tools and fixtures, Trainees at work, SRSTI Mettur. 6 Common Training programme split into: • Project work in plants • Various Accounting Functions – • 3-6 months training in product & Stress given for application of Training BPO and in Plant processes in classroom & in plants knowledge gained in the work place Training programmes are well • 6-9 months of on-the-job including product applications. designed to cover: training in the respective Training evaluation is done at every • Product training in classroom functions stage to constantly give feedback Training programme methodology: to the trainees on the level of • Product training practical absorption. (hands-on) in manufacturing • Typical classroom training plants (In-plant training) • Hands-on training in building Evaluation methodology includes: • Training in Manufacturing products/ trouble shooting • Weekly tests processes & Quality • Group activities in practicals • Assignments requirements (In-plant training) • Assignments • Technical presentations • Training in manufacturing & • Plant visits (Engineering trainees • Project presentations business systems (SAP) to Chemical plants & vice versa) which they implement in the work The thrust in Sanmar is on practical at Viralimalai. Similar facilities place. training and hence in addition are being set up at Mettur and to the classroom facility, ‘a mini Karapakkam also. Sometimes, Several of these, carried out under workshop’ for hands-on training, the close mentorship of operating Sanmar makes use of other institutes’ for trainees to assemble, dissemble, managers, have yielded significant facilities for practical training in and test all our products is available results. Mechanical Engineering Basics, Trainees at Viralimalai. 7 DCS Operations, Instrumentation, Electrical Systems and other subjects. “Our team works with the objective of creating technically