- Indian Machine Tools industry veteran Ashok V Sathe passed away on 29th December 2020
- A first-generation entrepreneur he was the Founder of Pragati Automation, and Group Chairman of ACE Micormatic
- A V Sathe received the prestigious 'Outstanding Entrepreneur of the Year' award in 2011 from IMTMA
ACE Group Chairman and founder of Pragati Automation, Ashok V Sathe passed away on Tuesday at Kolapur in Maharashtra while visiting a factory of Pragati Automation. He was one of the first generation entrepreneurs and visionaries who have taken the Indian manufacturing sector to the global scale. His sudden demise has left a huge void in manufacturing, especially the machine tool industry.
“Ace Micromatic Group has lost its founding father, the senior-most Director who had his pure simple and exalted design hand behind every product of the group,” said Ramesh T K, Managing Director of Micromatic Machine Tools. Mr. Sathe completed his graduation from the University of Pune and finished M-Tech in Machine Tools from IIT Bombay. After working at Walchand Nagar as a Design Engineer for a short period, he joined CMTI in 1963. He continued working in CMTI till 1976 before founding Pragati Engineering Works. In 1977, he started Pragati and in 1979, he started Ace Designers Ltd jointly with Mr. Machado and Mr. S G Shirgurkar.
T K Ramesh told Machine Maker that his loss is huge for the group, and it is a loss of the entire machine tool fraternity across the country. “His passion to put India on the global machine tool map was unmatched. Pragati was his vision, dream and he made it a global supplier of machine tool subsystem with exports accounting to almost 50% of sales to the most prominent global machine tool giants across Europe, USA, Japan & China,” he added. With vast experience and strong engineering and manufacturing knowledge, Mr. Sathe made Pragati Automation one of the largest Turret and Automatic Tool Changer manufacturers in the world. The company currently works for Machine Tool builders all around the world.
Responding to the demise, Indraneel Babu, President of Indian Machine Tool Manufacturing Association (IMTMA) said that the news was a shock and Mr. Sathe was a tremendous inspiration for him. “He put India made product on the map of the world, may it be Germany, China, Taiwan or elsewhere. His products were not only innovative but highly competitive. He adopted a unique backward integration approach. A very humble man and very much liked and loved in the Indian Machine Tool space”, added Mr. Babu.
Mr. Sathe received the prestigious 'Outstanding Entrepreneur of the Year' award in 2011 from IMTMA. Under his leadership, Pragati Automation has marked success outside India as well. The company set up a manufacturing plant in Jiaxing, near Shanghai, China, a landmark few other Indian companies have achieved so far. “Indeed he was a father figure to the entire machine tool fraternity.
Manu Ganesh, Managing Director of the GPY Machine Tools sharing his condolences said “Mr. Sathe was a great visionary. He’d contributed a lot to the Indian machine tool industry. His innovations are used by the best machine tool companies like DMG-Mori, Makino. I had a few interactions with him in the early 2000s when he shared his vision of developing in-house axis machines, manufacturing CAMs, and many more. He also shared how they have developed all critical components, which they don't import. He is the first person from India to start machine tools operations in China”.
I remember him as a hardcore Engineer & innovator at heart. Our heartfelt condolences to ACE family”, commented Mohini Kelkar, Managing Director of Grind Master Machines. As wrote by Sandeep Adkar, Founder of Indore-based 22 Century Technologies, “That's the end of the journey of an avid innovator, but the torch lightened by him will usher the way for younger generations. May God bless his soul and confer strength to Ace family”.
