As end-use industries demand higher performance and reliability, the steel wire rope segment is witnessing a decisive shift toward specialised solutions. In an exclusive interaction with Wire & Cable India, Mr. Mikesh Gupta, Director – Sales & Operations, Asahi Ropes Pvt. Ltd., outlines how the industry is moving beyond commodity products toward application-engineered wire ropes. He highlights growing demand from infrastructure, ports, offshore, and safety applications, where performance parameters such as fatigue life, corrosion resistance, and traceability are becoming critical. Mr. Gupta emphasises that advanced manufacturing processes, material precision, and digital traceability are reshaping competitiveness, while product specialisation and export focus will define the next phase of growth for India’s steel wire rope industry.
Wire & Cable India: Steel wire rope manufacturers today cater to a wide range of end-use industries through both conventional commodity and specialised products. Could you briefly describe your company’s speciality or application-specific steel wire rope portfolio and the key industries they serve?
Mikesh Gupta: At Asahi Ropes, we manufacture across a broad range of constructions — from standard 6-strand general-purpose ropes to more specialised products, including elevator ropes, rotation-resistant ropes, compacted strand ropes, and a comprehensive slings portfolio covering wire rope slings and multi-leg assemblies. Our key served segments include infrastructure and EPC contractors, lifting & material handling, power transmission, defence, crane OEMs, fall protection & safety ropes, and the elevator and mining sectors. On the slings side, every assembly is application-engineered– we configure the BOM per order and issue proof load certificates, because no two lifting applications carry the same risk profile. We also have a growing presence in stainless steel wire ropes, where demand is increasingly driven by architectural cable railing, marine, and fall protection applications.
Watch: Top Cable Companies in India
WCI: A large portion of steel wire rope production has traditionally consisted of general-purpose, commodity products. In your view, how does application-specific (specialty) steel wire rope differ from these commodity products in terms of metallurgy, performance requirements, and manufacturing precision?
MG: The distinction is quite fundamental. A commodity rope — say, a standard 6×19 FC — is designed for broad adequacy. The wire grades, lay lengths, and tolerances are set to meet a minimum published breaking load reliably and economically. Specialty ropes, on the other hand, are engineered for a specific application mode. A crane hoist rope on a high-cycle duty crane needs fatigue life, not just breaking load. A rotation-resistant rope for a tower crane needs precise torque balance across its construction. A rope running over a small drum needs superior flexibility without sacrificing tensile strength. These requirements push you into higher-grade wires — EIPS, EEIPS — tighter dimensional controls, specific surface treatments like galvanising or polymer coating, and often compacted strand geometries that improve fill factor and contact stress distribution. The metallurgy, drawing schedule, and closing parameters all have to work in concert. That’s not something you can achieve without deliberate process discipline and proper downstream verification.
WCI: As end-use industries evolve, their performance requirements increasingly influence wire rope design. Which sectors today are exerting the strongest influence on steel wire rope development and demand for specialised products?
MG: From what we see across our order book and in conversations with customers, three sectors stand out clearly. First, infrastructure and heavy lifting — the pace of construction activity in India, combined with the increasing use of high-capacity cranes, is driving genuine demand for rotation-resistant and compacted ropes, as well as plastic-impregnated and cushioned core constructions that extend service life in arduous duty cycles.
Second, ports and logistics — with the expansion of port capacities and the shift to larger, faster cranes, the duty cycles that ropes are subjected to have increased substantially, and customers are far more aware of total cost of ownership now than they were a decade ago.
Third, oil & gas and offshore — this segment has always been demanding, but with more offshore and subsea projects coming up, the specifications are increasingly tight on corrosion resistance, fatigue life, and traceability requirements. I would add defence and strategic infrastructure as a segment that is quietly becoming more significant for domestic manufacturers.
One more sector we find particularly promising is rockfall and slope protection. These applications require ropes and wire meshes engineered for high-energy impact absorption rather than static load —a very different design brief — and because the installations are exposed to the elements permanently, the corrosion protection requirements are significantly more stringent. Standard galvanising is often inadequate; customers in this space increasingly specify higher zinc coating weights and, in more aggressive environments, zinc-aluminium alloy coatings, which offer substantially better long-term corrosion resistance. This segment is underpenetrated in India relative to its actual risk exposure, which makes it genuinely exciting from a growth standpoint.
WCI: Different applications require specific mechanical and physical properties. What key technical parameters (such as tensile strength, breaking load, fatigue resistance, surface quality, abrasion resistance, or dimensional tolerance) are becoming most critical for these specialised steel wire rope applications?
MG: Breaking load remains the baseline — that conversation never goes away — but the parameters that actually differentiate performance in demanding applications are fatigue resistance, minimum breaking force retention after bending over sheaves, and dimensional consistency. In compacted strand and swaged ropes, fill factor and surface hardness matter enormously for wear behaviour. For lifting slings, we are seeing more customers specify minimum elongation characteristics, because predictable stretch behaviour is critical during controlled load testing. Surface quality — particularly for galvanised ropes — is also under greater scrutiny, with customers asking for coating thickness uniformity and adhesion tests rather than just a visual pass. Traceability is increasingly a parameter in its own right: defence and export customers want heat-number-level tracking from wire rod to finished rope, and that requires discipline across the entire manufacturing chain.
In stainless steel ropes, the conversation is evolving on multiple fronts simultaneously. Customers are pushing for higher breaking loads — driven by the need to use smaller diameter ropes in aesthetic and space-constrained applications like cable railing and architectural installations — which requires tighter control over the wire drawing process to achieve the necessary tensile grades without compromising ductility. Surface finish is another critical parameter: marine, food processing, and architectural applications each have distinct surface requirements, ranging from bright drawn to electropolished, and consistency of finish across a coil or reel directly influences both performance and acceptance. Beyond the standard 304 and 316 grades, we are also seeing demand for specialised grades — 1.4462 duplex for high-chloride offshore environments, and 1.4404 for pharmaceutical and food-grade applications — where the alloy selection is as much a part of the specification as the construction itself.
WCI: Does producing high-performance specialised wire rope often require advanced processing capabilities? If yes, what types of manufacturing technologies or specialised equipment are essential for producing such high-performance steel wire ropes?
MG: The foundation is controlled wire drawing — multi-pass drawing machines with stable die cooling and consistent speed control directly influence the mechanical properties of the finished wire. From there, stranding machines with precise back-twist and tension control are critical for achieving correct lay lengths and preventing residual torsion. For compacted strand constructions, you need dedicated compacting rollers with tight pass calibration. Closing machines — tubular or planetary — need to maintain consistent closing tension and speed ratios; variation here introduces bowing and uneven load distribution in the finished rope. On the quality side, non-destructive testing through magnetic flux leakage instruments is increasingly being adopted for in-process inspection of finished ropes, particularly for critical applications. Beyond hardware, process documentation and traceability infrastructure matter enormously — a rope is only as good as the consistency of the process that produced it, and that consistency needs to be demonstrable.
WCI: Steel wire production depends heavily on the quality and availability of wire rods. How do variations in raw material quality or fluctuations in input prices influence downstream wire manufacturing?
MG: Wire rod quality variation is one of the more underappreciated challenges in our industry. A change in sulphur or phosphorus content, or inconsistency in the patenting microstructure, can manifest as wire breaks during drawing — sometimes subtly, only showing up as marginal reductions in torsion test values that still technically pass. This is why the relationship between wire manufacturers and wire rod suppliers needs to go well beyond price negotiation; it has to include heat-wise metallurgical data, consistent rod diameter, and reliable surface conditioning. On the price side, wire rod cost as a proportion of total wire rope cost is significant enough that input price volatility directly compresses or occasionally restores margins, particularly in a market where customers often expect price stability on running orders. The organised manufacturers who maintain buffer inventory positions or have supply agreements with rod mills are somewhat insulated, but smaller players feel every correction immediately. This is one area where scale genuinely confers a structural advantage.
WCI: Across the industry, manufacturers are investing in process improvements and automation. Which recent technological or operational upgrades have had the greatest impact on product quality and manufacturing efficiency?
MG: For us, two areas have been particularly impactful. The first is tighter process monitoring at the stranding and closing stages — moving from periodic manual checks to more continuous parameter logging has helped us catch deviations earlier and reduce rework. The second is systematising our bobbin and intermediate inventory tracking.
In wire rope manufacturing, intermediate WIP — particularly bobbins of drawn wire and strand — is a significant working capital component, and poor visibility into WIP status creates both quality risks (old inventory re-entering production) and planning inefficiencies. Building discipline around unique batch identification from coil receipt through to finished rope has improved both our traceability posture and our production scheduling. More broadly, I would say that the manufacturers who are investing seriously in ERP and manufacturing execution systems are going to compound those operational gains considerably over the next few years, because data that exists only in operator notebooks or spreadsheets is data that cannot drive decisions.
WCI: India’s steel wire industry has historically been fragmented, but larger organised manufacturers are steadily expanding their presence. How do you see the competitive structure of the industry evolving in the coming years?
MG: The industry is at an inflection point. For many years, the market tolerated a large number of small, loosely organised producers competing primarily on price, often in the absence of rigorous quality verification. That model is under pressure from multiple directions simultaneously. End customers — particularly in infrastructure, ports, and defence — are raising their qualification and documentation requirements, which disadvantages producers who cannot demonstrate process control and traceability. Export markets are even more demanding. At the same time, the larger organised manufacturers are investing in capacity and capabilities in a way that widens the gap. I expect to see continued consolidation at the fragmented end of the market — either through exit, or through acquisition by larger players looking to add capacity quickly. The mid-tier manufacturers who invest seriously in technology, quality systems, and customer relationships will consolidate their positions. Those who do not will find margin compression and customer attrition accelerating simultaneously.
Also Read: Why Quality Standards Are the Backbone of Future-Ready Digital Infrastructure
WCI: Looking ahead, what will be the key strategic priorities for steel wire rope manufacturers — whether in terms of product specialization, capacity expansion, technology investments, or exploring new application segments?
MG: I see four areas as genuinely strategic over the next five years. First, product specialisation — there is real value being left on the table by manufacturers who have the capability to produce specialty constructions but continue to compete primarily in commodity segments. Pricing power and customer stickiness are both meaningfully better in specialised products.
Second, export development — India has the raw material base, the manufacturing capability, and increasingly the quality credibility to compete globally in wire ropes, but it requires dedicated effort in certifications, documentation, and market development. Indian manufacturers are already doing meaningful export volumes, which is encouraging — but the industry is undermining itself by competing aggressively on price against each other in the same markets, rather than differentiating on quality, certification, and application expertise. At the same time, Chinese suppliers remain a significant competitive force globally, with the scale and cost structure to dominate commodity segments. The only sustainable response for Indian manufacturers is to move up the value chain — competing on product performance, reliability, and technical support rather than on price alone.
Third, digital infrastructure — manufacturers who build strong ERP, traceability, and quality data systems now will have compounding advantages in operational efficiency, customer confidence, and regulatory compliance.
Fourth, sustainability — this conversation is early in India but it is coming; wire rod sourcing from greener mills, energy consumption per tonne, and product recyclability will become part of customer and regulatory conversations within the planning horizon of investments being made today.
