parvaiz ishfaq ranapublished about 3 hours agosama engineering manufactures 37 models of packaging machines with various capacities, starting with those with a singlepacking lane at a time and going up to six, says muhammad umer.the engineering industry often complains that it has been denied a level playing field to develop and compete with its foreign suppliers of machinery and plants, stifling its growth. local firms, with marketable engineering products, plants, machinery and spare parts, are starved of credit and other supporting facilities available to their foreign peers.many engineering firms have closed down also because of the preferred choice of buyers for foreign products backed by easy access to external and local credit.but there are still some who have faced all odds to succeed with a combination of technical expertise and entrepreneurship with a difference. one of them is sama eginnering, founded by its chief executive officer muhammad umer sama. it manufactures locally designed and fabricated packaging machines and caters to both domestic and foreign markets.since its inception in 1978, the company has exported around 400 packaging machines with varying functions and capacities. it currently exports its machines to gulf and african countries, including saudi arabia, as well as to philippines, bangladesh and india.and its domestic customers include multinationals engaged in manufacturing and processing beverages, as well as pharmaceutical, cosmetic, food, and health and personal care products.the company is competing with those from india and china in the bangladesh market, and exported its first unit to india about four years backhaving started working at a tender age as a &lsquochotoo&rsquo to support his family, muhammad umer was given the task of packing napkin bundles in a textile unit at site in 1968. his father also worked in the same unit after having migrated from india, where his family had a modest timber business.used to looking at things in a different way and with a keen interest in machines and their functioning, his father handed him over to ustad haris bhai, who was looking after machines in the same unit.with a broad vision and the capacity to work on it, muhammad umer realised that the textile industry was a small world for him. so he tried his luck in setting up a workshop for airconditioning and refrigeration units, along with a facility for fixing home wiring. but with no experience of managing and marketing a business, he was unable to run it for long.he then immediately took up a job in the repair and maintenance section at the national foods factory. however, he religiously kept engaged in developing and designing packing machines on a modest scale in his small liaquatabad house.in the early 1970s, muhammad umer designed and developed a machine that could pack betel nut supari in a sachet. and then popular brands like shahi supari, tasty, milan, boby and 7up flooded the market, creating a new generation of consumers.however, as luck would have it, brooke bond pakistan asked him during 197678 to convert its conventional tea sachets of 10 grammes from paper to polycoated paper, he recalled while talking to this writer in his factory office in nazimabad, karachi.recognising his efforts, he said, mr s.a. abidi, a masters degree holder in printing, awarded him by paying double the cost of the machine he had developed for polycoated paper packaging. this led to a turnaround in his business.the machine became the trendsetter and revolutionised the packaging industry, as many other multinationals, including lipton pakistan and unilever pakistan foods ltd, followed suit and placed orders for these machines.in the meantime, he said, brooke bond pakistan imported a new machine from europe to pack sachets. once again, mr abidi &mdash whom muhammad umer says he considers his mentor &mdash tasked him to design and fabricate similar duplex machines. he was again rewarded handsomely when he completed the task.as of today, around 100 of these duplex units are operating in brooke bond and 130 in unilever pakistan foods, he said.having a big costadvantage and an efficient after sales service and maintenance facilities in place, sama engineering&rsquos ceo added that other multinationals like tetley and vital have placed orders for not only a series of packaging machines, but also asked it to design and select the packing outfit for their products.&ldquomy company has competed with indian and chinese ones in the bangladesh market, and also exported its first unit to india about four years back.&rdquothe world food programme run by the united nations in pakistan also employs the company&rsquos packaging machines, which are durable and compatible against any global brand, he added.giving some technical details, muhammad umer said sama engineering manufactures 37 models of packaging machines with various capacities, starting with those with a singlepacking lane at a time and going up to six.published in dawn, economic & business, november 10th, 2014source httpwww.dawn.comnews1143222indigenoustechnologyatwork
