SIKORA INDIA: Indian Cable Manufacturers Adopting Backward Integration; Strengthening Cable Compounding Capabilities

In an exclusive interaction with Wire & Cable India, Mr. Nilesh Chorage, General Manager, SIKORA INDIA (Mumbai), describes India as one of the most dynamic and forward looking markets for the wire and cable industry with strong growth potential. He highlights a clear trend among cable manufacturers toward backward integration into cable compounding. As material purity or compound selection becomes increasingly stringent, the demand for advanced inline contamination detection and sorting systems accelerates, strengthening SIKORA’s role in enabling process optimization and real-time quality analysis.

Wire & Cable India: Please briefly outline your company’s cable and wire industry product focus, including key technologies, product types, and principal end-use sectors.

Nilesh Chorage: ‘Technology To Perfection’ is SIKORA’s guiding principle. For more than 50 years, our company has been a leading provider of measuring and control systems for industrial wire and cable production. Since 2025, SIKORA has been part of the MAAG Group, a global supplier of integrated polymer processing solutions and a member of the Dover Corporation.

SIKORA delivers innovative solutions based on AI, laser, X-ray, radar, optics, ultrasound and electromagnetic technologies and sets standards with solutions for quality control, process optimization and cost savings in many industrial sectors.

In the cable sector, modern laser and X-ray technologies measure precisely and reliably product parameters such as outer diameter, ovality, wall thickness and concentricity. In addition, our product portfolio comprises spark testers for the detection of insulation faults, lump detectors for the detection of faults on the product surface, capacity measuring systems as well as devices for reliable conductor preheating and temperature measurement.

The application areas are diverse. For example, SIKORA technologies are installed in extrusion lines for quality control of automotive and data cables as well as building wires. Also, in insulating and sheathing lines as well as for measuring and controlling high voltage cables in CV lines or in drawing towers during optical fibre manufacturing, the SIKORA systems are predestined. Our portfolio is rounded off by inspection and sorting systems for plastic pellets such as XLPE.

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WCI: Within your core product segments, how would you characterise current demand conditions and order visibility?

NC: India is a highly power-hungry market, and sustained investments in energy infrastructure have driven strong growth in the power cable sector. This has led into exponential demand for our X-ray based inline process control solutions. Based on current project pipelines and customer conversations, we see that order is visibly extending over the next couple of years.

WCI: Within your manufacturing offerings, how do you currently assess investment sentiment among wire and cable producers, particularly in emerging markets such as India?

NC: The wire and cable industry is currently growing at a rate exceeding 8% CAGR and growth will continue. Almost every single cable manufacturer planned significant capex towards the capacity expansion in power cable and data cable, and we see that the trend will continue for the next couple of years.

WCI: Which customer or application requirements are currently exerting the greatest pressure to improve productivity and quality within your product range?

NC: Power cable, cable compounders and data cable are applications that demand expertise in process optimisation and inline quality analysis. A notable trend is the backward integration of major cable manufacturers into cable compounding. To meet increasingly stringent material purity requirements, there is a strong demand for inline contamination detection and sorting solutions, particularly through the purity scanner advanced from SIKORA.

WCI: Which manufacturing disciplines, automation measures, or quality-assurance practices have delivered the most tangible improvements in your yield or rework reduction?

NC: The rising XLPE material costs have significantly increased the focus on process optimisation in the Sioplas/Silane lines for the LV and MV cables. With the help of X-RAY 8700 NXT, customers are able to monitor eccentricity and wall-thickness at 8 points, enabling precise centering during start-up and accurate thickness control during production. By using X-RAY 8700 NXT inline, the customer successfully reduced its manufacturing cost significantly.

Process improvement measures have long been needed in the manufacturing of sector cables due to their structure. The industry’s typical challenges of high start-up scrap and material overconsumption have been addressed by our latest X-RAY 6000 PURE. The inline measurement offers values at the 6 points, which helps the customer to control wall thickness to the minimum value. This not only reduces the cable failure but also helps reduce start-up scrap and minimise the material consumption during the overall production process.

WCI: Looking ahead three to five years, which wire & cable segments or applications are most likely to drive the next investment cycle?

NC: Renewable energy will be a key driver. Continued growth in the power industry will stimulate further investments in power cable and cable compounds, while the boom in data centres will drive the data cable industry for the next couple of years.

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WCI: How do you see India as a market?

NC: India is a dynamic and forward-looking market with strong long-term growth potential. While challenges such as currency depreciation and geopolitical uncertainties may create short-term volatility, the overall outlook remains positive, supported by infrastructure development and rising energy demand.