From the anomaly of early-age marriage to starting as proprietor of a manufacturing business, Vaishali Gajanan Lupane stands aberrant in helping to forge optimistic visibility of women's talent through internships at her shopfloors. Felicitating the wives of employees for their exceptional performance, Vaishali is taking up the women’s inclination towards manufacturing to the next level.
While visiting the inspiring industrialist Babasaheb Neelkanth Kalyani, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Forge, in which her father BD Bhunje served as an accountant, she witnessed an entrepreneur who excelled in manufacturing and spread the mighty of Indian manufacturing across the globe. The life of Shri Kalyani motivated Vaishali to start her own entrepreneurial journey, resulting in founding Proton Metalcrafts Private Limited with her husband in the year 2004.
Machine Maker in association with Phillips Machine Tools is bringing stories of women who made remarkable achievements in the manufacturing sector. Vaishali Lupane, in an exclusive interaction with Machine Maker, spoke about how she was able to build her company, Proton Metalcrafts from sheer determination. You can now get the special digital edition, free at Womanufacturing 2022
Vaishali Gajanan Lupane is a full-time working Director in Proton Metalcrafts Private Limited, they are manufacturing components for automobiles, pumps and valves, defence, aerospace and general engineering companies. More than just looking after the machine operations, Vaishali’s unique strand in manufacturing lies in her role of majorly handling the HR department of the company to address the human-related problems in the company.
A challenging start
Vaishali is known to be an early-age warrior and inspiration for all women who think to drop their careers due to the early-age challenges of marriage and family. She got married just after completing her 12th standard at a very early age. But she had the determination to complete her graduation after marriage and completed her Bachelor in Commerce from SNDT College. The academic journey never stopped, and further, she completed a Diploma in computer application from Datapro.
When she got married her husband Gajanan Lupane was working in a private engineering company. The couple were living in a very small apartment with a very low income, but she had an aim to do something in her life from a very early age. Her entrepreneur journey started with a computer embroidery unit, all from scratch managing right from marketing, manufacturing and accounts. She used to visit shops, small and big establishments to develop business for her initial venture.
Bonding with Technology
“My husband had a vast experience of CNC machines, so I motivated him into starting our own manufacturing company and Proton Metalcrafts was born in the year 2004 with one CNC machine”, said Vaishali. When they started Proton Metalcrafts even purchase of tabs and drills from the local market was sourced by herself basically to save cost. “Being a woman who is simultaneously handling the home as well as graduation, and then directly entering into manufacturing, it was challenging. The initial phase itself hit the panic button when our products were not fulfilling the quality checks,” narrates Vaishali on her great but challenging thrust in the manufacturing.
With unparallel creativity, she, with her husband then overcame this challenge by setting up the CNC machine in a 3000 sq ft shop which paved the way for her organization’s growth and led the company to get a strong Customer base with quality compliant products. In 2005 the couple were able to add their first Haas CNC Vertical Machining Centre and after that Vaishali never had to look back. “Today I am proud to say that we are having more than 30 CNC machines which include CNC Turning Centre, 3-axis, 4-axis, and 5-axis Machining Centres, spread over 15000 sq ft facility. The support from HAAS right from our journey cannot be expressed in words and we are thankful to them”, added Mrs Lupane.
Right from our inception, Vaishali believed in investing in the latest CNC machines than conventional machines. “This is also the reason why we could grow so fast as we are providing accuracy and proper on-time delivery to our customers”, adds Vaishali Lupane. Proton Metalcrafts, headquartered in Pune is one of the fastest going manufacturers of critical machined components for all Industrial sectors from automobiles, Oil & Gas, Food, Power, Locomotives, General Engineering, Pneumatics, Defence & Aerospace. They are also making some parts of Brahmos missiles.
People are the Backbone
“I love to work closely with our people who are our backbone”. At Proton Metalcrafts Vaishali takes care of HR, Admin and Finance. Understanding the problems of people and solving them is the main focus area of Vaishali. At present more than 70 employees are working with her and she knows each one of them personally.
At Proton Metalcrafts, Vaishali developed several schemes for motivating people. Every month first the people are rewarded with awards for Best Attendance, Best Quality Output, Best Housekeeping, and Best Employee. “We felicitate our employees who have performed well for the month and have contributed immensely to the growth of the organization. This is to increase the morale as well as promote workmanship in our company. Most of the time the gifts we were given which was useful to the lady of the house. Often the wives of our people used to come and tell me that they motivate their husband to do better so that the gifts are useful”, says Vaishali.
“We also felicitate the spouses of our employees working in our organization if they have achieved something great.” Vaishali sheerly showed her agility in keeping a check on every ins and out about what they have achieved till a month and what is the next goal and personally looking after each employee has helped to retain the pace of the company’s growth.
Family for achieving the Dreams
When Vaishali made up her mind to start something on her own, her husband was very supportive in all of her endeavours. She adds, “After I was married, I was constantly thinking about opening a business instead of joining a white-collar job. My husband also had the same ambitions and we worked together as a team towards achieving our dream.”
Support from family is crucial for entrepreneurs, especially for women entrepreneurs as there is a notion in the society that the manufacturing sector is only for men. In her journey, Vaishali received full support and love from her mother and also her father-in-law to move towards her dream freely. “I am also proud to say that my entire family are active in the business. My son Vivek is MTech and handles manufacturing and my daughter in law, Anuja a Computer Engineer handles IT-related responsibilities”, shared Vaishali.
Recognizing women at Shopfloor
About gender equality, she feels that it was an issue a decade before. But now women are getting a chance to prove themselves these days and the difference in the number of men and women working in the manufacturing sector has changed for the better. “Generally very few girls are interested in working in the male-dominated engineering industry. But because of IT, girls now have an equal opportunity to work in design, CNC programming, Quality and other departments in the engineering and manufacturing industry”, she opines.
Vaishali believes that these positive changes are just the beginning and the participation of women in manufacturing will only increase. “I would suggest women come and join the manufacturing industry for the betterment of the industry itself. Every woman should step out of their houses and should learn and explore the world as much as they can.” The government has started many initiatives for women's empowerment. “There are a lot of subsidies for women to motivate them to start their own business. We should try to utilize these at the maximum. There are a lot of schemes for women in skill development which I personally try to promote to young women.”
Womanufacturing: Proactive for Industrial Growth
Initially, she faced challenges to bring the women to show the high-octane potential they own. But, soon the picture changed and many young girls from 34 colleges and institutes near their location came and started to show their keen interest in finding opportunities in manufacturing as interns.
“As far women’s role in the organization is concerned, we celebrate the exceptional performance standard of the women who are working in our company by rewarding them and inspiring them further to achieve great targets,” shares Vaishali on her role in inspiring women in her company. She believes that if a woman is willing to work at shopfloors, nothing can stop her from starting a venture.
She believes that a woman may be dominated for particular responsibility, but when a woman take-up a high role, manufacturing can no longer be male-dominated. The women leader urges more and more women to come and join the manufacturing sector. Her sole efforts have been incessantly inspiring the women to explore more and more, as much as they can.
“Women’s sincerity definitely brings discipline to the business. Making a woman the leader of the organization proves to be an efficient way to the betterment of the manufacturing industry,” she shares, citing her daughter-in-law who also holds a key managerial role in the IT department of the company.
Vaishali is optimistic about the policies and thinks that women can avail themselves of the creativity and potential within them. Apart from her mother and sister, who helped Vaishali while she was off due to business purposes, who Hat tip for Vaishali was her child, who was pretty independent to manage himself by when she was about to start her journey.
“Women should come ahead in the manufacturing, not only for the growth prospects but also, for the betterment of the industry in all aspects,” remarks Vaishali. “Looking back over the years I ponder and amuse what I did over all these years, and I am so proud of those achievements. My advice to the young women is to see the world and dare to do what not have done before”, concludes Vaishali Gajanan Lupane.
