Global Rubber Industries Pvt. Ltd. (GRI) is marking three years of specialty tire production at its plant in Badalgama, Sri Lanka.
The plant has a capacity of 25 metric tons of rubber a day, and can produce tires for the agriculture, construction and material handling industries. It's also the only plant in the country that produces radial agricultural tires.
Three company executives offered their insights on what the plant means to the GRI today, and for the future.
Ananda Caldera, executive director of GRI, says, “The rapid growth of the new production plant has been a monumental achievement for GRI. We developed specifications, produced samples, tested extensively, and industrialized rapidly to build a comprehensive and compelling product portfolio. It was a massive exercise, from the beginning, for all involved. I am proud to say that today, we have industrialized and commercialized over 300 SKUs."
Mahesha Ranasoma, the company's CEO, says “GRI was able to go to market and win customer confidence with a brilliant product that offered great value to end-users. Today, we have more orders than our current capacity and therefore excited to embark on expanding our capacity to 100 metric tons a day. We will continue to increase our product range adding more sizes and launching new products but staying focused on specialty tires. Innovation is in our DNA. Our skilled engineers, researchers and technical experts take GRI forward swiftly, covering all aspects of our products, production and process innovation.”
Prabhash Subasinghe, Managing Director of GRI, is thankful for the people “who worked hard to make this specialty tire plant a success within such a short time. I am grateful to our employees, our community and our customers who believed in our ambition and our purpose to inspire greatness. GRI is relentlessly focused on taking high-grade Sri Lankan specialty tires to the world. We invite all to join our journey as we embrace opportunities in this generation to create possibilities for the next generation."