Industrial Stainless Steel Fabrications (ISF) is a company that specialises in designing and manufacturing process machinery and equipment to provide end-to-end production plant solutions for dairy and coconut industries, and tailor made solutions for chemicals, cosmetic, petroleum and brewery industries. It is unique because it has succeeded in breaking off the shackles that typically limit industrial ventures operating in a small market like Sri Lanka. ISF imports its raw materials, exposing the company to currency fluctuations. The company also confronts tough competition from imported brands that enjoy the benefits of cheap raw materials access and scale in their home countries. Moreover, they enjoy duty free status when imported into Sri Lanka as a completed machinery.

However, ISF is indefatigable in its approach to innovation and consistently achieving high quality, helping it win markets in Sri Lanka and India, paving the way to pioneering of milk cooling tanks decades earlier. Today, ISF has an impressive client portfolio including Unilever India, Sri Lanka & Iran, Nestle India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria & Syria, Fonterra, Renuka Group, CBL, Maliban, Lion Brewery, Cargills and Indian giants such as Amul Group, Hatsun, Lactalis, KMF, Britannia Industries, and Indian Tobacco Company and several more. Anjula Sivakumaran Muttiah, a second-generation director at ISF, talks to us about continuing her father’s legacy, expanding its global reach, and venturing into designing and building integrated manufacturing plants with end-to-end solutions.

Can you take us through the journey of ISF?

My father, Mr. Navaratnam Sivakumaran, who qualified as an engineer in the UK, determinedly returned to Sri Lanka and founded ISF in Jaffna in 1977 to manufacture machinery in Sri Lanka. Initially he commenced rebuilding engines and embarked into manufacturing equipment in the later part of 1978. The company ventured into the fabrication of small-scale machinery for fish-meal and poultry feed plants to support the fishing and poultry industries. However, the eruption of the war in the Northern part of Sri Lanka, completely shattered the vision of my father, reducing the company operations to ashes in 1983. Blessings in disguise, ISF was compelled to move its operations to Colombo and commence rebuilding slowly and steadily.

The realisation that a vacuum existed for stainless steel machineries, ISF diversified its business into stainless steel fabrication and equipment manufacturing for the processing industries operating in Sri Lanka. Soon, ISF carved out a special name as a stainless steel machinery manufacturer and won the confidence of clients of the food and dairy industries. Our association with Nestle paved the way for us to pioneer the manufacture of milk cooling tanks in Sri Lanka, that too to international standards, satisfying every aspect of hygienic requirements of the dairy industry.

We have two manufacturing facilities in India and Sri Lanka. The Indian plant was set up in the mid 1990s when Nestle, taken up with our superior quality, invited us to do so. At the moment in India, we manufacture high-quality milk cooling tanks of international standards for export to any part of the globe. ISF was the first Sri Lankan company to export machinery, even to countries like Germany. We serve major conglomerates in India such as Amul, Hatsun, and Lactalis, and our reach is quite impressive across India, especially in North India.

ISF has the distinctive achievement of playing a pivotal role in India’s “White Revolution” which paved the way for India to achieve self sufficiency in milk, by manufacturing and supplying thousands of milk cooling tanks and other milk processing equipment.

We further went on to exercise our engineering expertise to provide complete process engineering solutions by designing and manufacturing machinery and equipment for the dairy and coconut industries, thus stand out as the only engineering company who could do so in Sri Lanka.

ISF’s recent venture into designing end-to-end automated manufacturing solutions coupled with ERP systems have immensely helped manufacturing companies to achieve optimal cost and labour efficiencies resulting in superior quality controls.

ISF being a Sri Lankan medium level company, to break into the giant Indian market and become a leader and stands as an unavoidable force in the dairy sector, is a remarkable achievement. ISF remains as an inspiration for anyone who aspires to enter this market.

ISF, a bi-national company, has diversified ventures in manufacturing, agriculture and retail businesses, employing over 600 people.

ISF’s unique partnership with Unilever for the past three decades in manufacturing their non soap detergent powder accounts for Unilever’s substantial volume of business, demonstrates our high level achievement of manufacturing ability with unblemished quality at international standards.

Our penetration in the Sri Lankan market could be well demonstrated by the fact that any Sri Lankan from the time they wake up and till they go to bed, would have used a product either manufactured by ISF or would have been manufactured using equipment manufactured by ISF.

What is your vision for the company’s future?

I am confident that with our products, attention to quality and commitment to constant innovation, we can take our brand to the global market. From the day my father started the business, we have placed innovation and quality at the core of everything we do. Sri Lanka is not a source for industrial raw materials, especially steel, so we focused on innovation and quality to add value with our technical knowhow and manufacture machinery at a competitive price, with excellent after sale service, to win the confidence of our customers, thus avoiding them looking for machineries imported from other countries.

What do you hope to achieve by joining the Sri Lanka @ 100 project?

In line with our vision of taking the ISF brand globally, we identified Sri Lanka @ 100 as a perfect partner to join with. We believe their comprehensive experience coupled with their vision of developing small and medium industries to market their products globally, will help us to achieve our vision.

We intend to build on our successes in Sri Lanka and India and take ISF global. We believe our expertise in coconut and milk-based food processing industries will attract international brands and win their confidence and trust in accepting our products and capabilities. Right now, we are looking at expanding our reach into Africa and Southeast Asia.

What is the boldest business decision you have ever made?

Building a center for technical excellence covering all engineering aspects in a developing country like Sri Lanka remains as the key strategic decision ever made by me so far.

We have developed this center for technical excellence, composed of highly talented scientists, engineers and other professionals, whom we will continue to invest in so that ISF can realise its potential to become a global brand.

This decision has rewarded us in providing innovative integrated process solutions to our clients from multiple industries, to achieve excellence in their manufacturing process.

When I joined ISF, I realised how important it was to achieve scale for growth. In India, we have pushed the boundaries of quality, while scaling production across multiple product lines. For instance, in dairy, we used to manufacture cup fillers of 3,000 cups/hour capacity, but today we have exceeded 25,000 cups/hour.

Since the Sri Lankan processing industry is smaller when compared to India, economy of scale in manufacturing machinery and equipment is a challenge. Hence we decided to provide end-to-end total solutions to our clients. Further, we have enabled automation of manufacturing processes with SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems. Factory owners can now monitor every aspect of cost and productivity in real-time from a remote location, limiting human intervention in their manufacturing process and achieving required high quality end products.