What India Inc can learn from Kirloskar Brothers’ all-women unit in Coimbatore

The sun was yet to rise at Arasur — a little hamlet about 22 km east of Coimbatore. Under the bright LED streetlights that lit the empty tree-lined main road passing through village stood 34-year-old Rameela M, dressed in a navy blue jacket over her kurta. The silence was broken by the rattle of a nearby power-loom and a dog barking occasionally.
Around 5.50 am, a brightly coloured bus, empty except for the driver, appeared in the distance. Seeing the bus, Rameela turned back and called out in Tamil. Within seconds, three more women of similar age in navy blue uniforms emerged from different houses in the lane behind her. Rameela’s husband, Muthayyia, also stepped out to their house to bid adieu. After the ladies boarded, the bus started for the next village, Thenampalayam. It picked up women from three more villages before reaching Kirloskar Brothers’ pump manufacturing unit at Karumathampatti, about 7 km from Arasur.



By 6.30 am, the sun had risen, and more buses have rolled into the campus, bringing about 100 women employees. After a quick prayer meeting, the women moved into the shop floor to start their work. The unit in Karumathampatti, about 25 km from Coimbatore airport, employs only women to handle its two shifts. The employees assemble, test and pack small water pumps for domestic use. The only men at the factory are the 10 office staffers and some outsourced labourers handling inward deliveries, security guards and drivers.

Many like Rameela see the plant as a way out of darkness — much like the bus ride that starts in the dark and ends in sunlight. Rameela and her husband, who hail from Madurai, faced opposition from their conservative families when she had expressed her desire to work after marriage.

At Arasur, she says, she found freedom. And at the pump making unit, she found a job she loved. too. Out of its consolidated sales of Rs 2,775 crore in 2017-18, the Coimbatore unit contributed Rs 132 crore, and is expected to give Rs 180 crore in 2018-19.

KBL doubled its women power in Coimbatore from 100 to 200 in 2017. It trebled its production capacity to 75,000 pumps a month, after introducing a second shift. The plant has been a productivity champion. At one point, the management toyed with the idea of an all-male night shift. But the idea was abandoned, as the women promised to produce as much and more.



Enthused by the success at Coimbatore, KBL ensured 35% of the workers at its Sanand plant were women. KBL is also on the lookout for women engineers across locations, Chairman and MD of KBL Sanjay Kirloskar tells ET Magazine. “I find women engineers more articulate and better able to explain certain things, than men.”

KBL has seen productivity shoot up at other assembly lines also operated by women. Rama Kirloskar, a director of KBL and daughter of Sanjay Kirloskar, recounts how male workers at their Indore plant demanded that instead of women-only assembly lines, women workforce be spread across all assembly lines. “Guess what? It was because women’s lines were way faster. We, of course, did not change a thing,” she adds.'

KBL has seven factories in India. About 7% of the employees are women, say company officials.

Human resources policies at the Coimbatore factory have evolved over the years to make them friendlier to women. For instance, workers get an extended sabbatical after their maternity leaves, and can come back to work after that. Take the case of Gomathi, 30, who comes to work with her two children - Sabarivasan, 3.5 years, and Roobashri, 2.5 years - and leaves them at the creche inside the compound.

In the last seven years, Gomathi has taken at least three breaks from work -during marriage, childbirths and due to an accident. Barely three days after her wedding, Gomathi surprised her in-laws by repairing a water pump at home. Today, she is one of the poster girls here, having learnt to drive a forklift.



The head of the plant, Lakshmi U, has worked at MNCs such as Schneider and Caterpillar across India after completing her mechanical engineering in 1993. She has managed plants with more than 2,000 workers, while almost single-handedly bringing up her 11-year-old son. Her husband, S Shaktikumar, is an engineer posted in Chennai.

He has to travel for work almost 20 days a month. The couple usually gets a weekend together every month. Lakshmi was looking for a job that would make it possible to give more time to her son. When she got an opportunity to join KBL Coimbatore, the prospect of heading an all-woman factory became an added attraction that she could not resist.

Today, Lakshmi is a sought-after speaker at conferences focused on women. She has now trained some women workers at KBL to speak at local business meets in Coimbatore. Lakshmi has introduced some human resource innovations such as hiring young women with learning disabilities for the shop floor and institutionalising home visits by the top management so that the families get to know the employers well.

The familial feeling is evident on the KBL campus. Bhuvana, a diploma engineer who has risen to be an assistant manager, says she loves that workers call her "akka" (elder sister) instead of madam. Others tell ET Magazine they find the place safer and friendlier than other workplaces. The strict adherence to eight-hour shifts is a boon, they say, and not something all factories necessarily follow.


This area in Tamil Nadu is no stranger to women participating in the workforce. Coimbatore is a hub of pump factories and foundries. Tirupur, some 30 km from the KBL unit, is known for its spinning, textiles and garment units.

It is also an export hub. At spinning mills, 70% of the employees are women. Every year Tirupur attracts five lakh workers from across the country, according to an estimate by a local non-governmental organisation, Social Awareness & Voluntary Education. Many women, especially tribal women from Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam, have come to Tirupur and Coimbatore over the last five years looking for work.

Women workers are seen as being more obedient and less demanding, and are also less likely to form a trade union, says A Aloysius, founder of Social Awareness & Voluntary Education, which works with migrant workers in Tirupur.

"Many units in Tirupur moved from employing women to employing juveniles - who are even more insecure and demand even less. The tasks are simple enough for young people to handle. There is a stream of youngsters, at least 50% are women, aged 17 to 18 who are coming in to work in the region from the eastern states."

In a clear contrast, at KBL, most employees live nearby, most are married and some have college-going kids. Across India, examples abound of women forming unions and negotiating for wages, says D Prasanth Nair, HR consultant and a former head of global HR at Cipla.

Nair says hiring very young people is an activity driven purely by a profit motive. "Industry should hire women, invest in their development and allow them to fulfil career aspirations." He points out that a familial feeling is easier to cultivate among a group of women and helps reduce attrition.

The head of HR at KBL in Coimbatore, A Antoine Baskar, agrees. Women do not easily get bored in an assembly line, as conversations among themselves keep them going, he says. "Men would get bored easily." The question is, can the all-woman model at KBL be a template for companies across India. Lessons or wisdom like these are often quickly spread. Britannia, for one, has just announced a new factory in Assam with 70% staff being women.