Dynamic development in rubber production
Zenith travelled a long and dynamic path of development since its inception over half of a century ago. The company was created by Farooq Vohra in 1967. Initially it was just a small, family owned, bicycle tires and tubes manufacture. At present it is an international rubber tycoon. The company relies on two manufacturing plants. The main one is located in Mumbai, India and second one in Ras Al Khaimach in United Arab Emirates.
Zenith Rubber Industries is a true colossus employing over half thousand production workers. This places the company within top 3 of the biggest rubber manufacturing enterprises worldwide. It specialises in production of high-quality technical rubber sheets. In addition, the company manufactures rubber floorings, rubberised fabrics, mats, and molded products. Chairman Mazar Vohra by dynamically and consequently developing its vision focused on specialization in area of high-quality rubber sheets and floorings. At present floorings sold under Zenith, Duraflor and Dura-Tranz brands are one most frequently used products in public facility buildings in Asia, North America and Middle East.
Zenith’s annual rubber floorings production output amounts to 28000 ton. Over 90% of its products are being exported to countries across 5 continents where Zenith Rubber dealers and distribution network are present
Innovative center for rubber compounds and sheet manufacturing
The larger of Zenith production plants is situated 60 km away from Mumbai on a 25 thousand square meter industrial estate. It is truly an innovative manufacturing site. The entire facility was designed and organized in full compliance with international environmental protection standards and equipped with state-of-the-art manufacturing machinery. At its core are huge capacity mixers, that can output over 80 ton of rubber compounds per day.
The consistency of production parameters allows for repeatable compounds manufacturing. The company owns four Krauss Maffei-Berstorff calender lines that roll cured rubber with the tolerances up to 0,1 mm. Each of the calender lines is designed in a way that makes it possible to joinin different compound layers and coat textile fabric with cured compounds in thicknesses from 0,1 mm.
Thanks to 20 rolling vulcanizing lines, Zenith has the daily capacity to vulcanize over 10 thousand square meters of rubber sheets and floorings. Each machine is additionally kitted with a set of reporting sensors constantly monitoring the most important quality parameters of the vulcanization process. The Mumbai plant has in total 27 rolling vulcanizing machines, which makes it one the biggest rubber vulcanization machine park worldwide. The same location houses 4 vulcanization presses. Those allow for production of pressed rubber sheets in thicknesses up to 50 mm. The presses are used for production of vibration dampers and hard abrasive sheeting widely employed within the mining industry.
Manufacturing Quality Control
Zenth Rubber prioritizes highest quality. The company’s manufacturing premises are not only impressive due to their size. Zenith owns state of the art control laboratories that continuously monitor the quality of the manufacturing process. The labs are equipped with rheometers, ozone chambers, ovens for flammability tests and installations allowing for isolation testing of non-conductive floorings up to 60000 volts. 100% of raw compounds supplied as raw material for production or sheets and floorings are subjected to quality control tests. Both the physical and chemical characteristics of all finished goods are verified. Zenith’s Mumbai facility also houses an own Research and
Development Center where a team of chemical engineers constantly works on perfecting current solutions and introducing new rubber products. Rheometers and Money viscometers allow the specialists to conduct research and analysis of rubber compound mixes. In order to replicate the extreme environmental conditions and work conditions that finished rubber products may be subjected to in their product life the company uses ozone and cold chambers, DIN and Taber abraders, flex and water permeability testers as well as heating ovens.
Zenith also uses hardness testers, tensile and elongation test benches, high capacity fabric testers, specific gravity balancers, dispersion analyzers and spectrometers for color marching to make sure that the products are 100 percent in accordance with the desired technical specifications.
All test results are recorded and filed at the R&D facility. Zenith has a very well-educated technical team fully trained in carrying out tests in accordance with DIN, ASTM, BS, ISO and Australian Quality Standards. The entire production process is compliant with ISO:9001 and ISO1400 quality assurance norms. The rubber sheets and mats manufactured by Zenith are CE certified, as well as ROHS and REACH compliant. The products conform to the PAHfree standards, which warrant that they do not contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The sheets are odorless and remain neutral for their users. In addition Zenith products have Indian IRCLASS and DSIR quality certificates. Within its offer the company has rubber sheets and mats designed to be in contact with food and potable water that are
compliant and certified to FDA, WRAS (Water Regulations Advisory Board) and WQC (Australian Water Quality Center) norms.
Zenith manufactures its rubber sheets and floorings based on own raw materials. This is something unique in a global scale. Having its own natural rubber plantation and manufacturing SBR, NBR, EPDM, nitrile, chloroprene, butyl, silicone and viton compounds allows Zenith to offer an extremely large array of rubber sheets and floorings.
Development – production of special floorings and rubber coated fabrics
The company persistently implements its plan of developing special floorings designed for public transport needs. This adds to Zenith Group’s brand recognition and strengthens the company market position. The floorings are one of the most valued products of the Zenith Group. They are appreciated for their great insulation characteristic, low flammability, and very high abrasion resistance. Zenith rubber floorings can be found not only within rail and metro stations, airport terminals and other public facilities but also in places where fire safety is of utmost importance such as offshore oil drilling platforms, electric power plants, refineries, military bases or transformer stations.
The company also developed production of rubberized textile floorings and rubber coated fabrics, highly rated because of their high quality and unique parameters, such as very good abrasion resistance, high durability, low weight, air permeability, ability to withstand crushing and hitting, as well as resistance to gases and fuel. The textile bases of rubberized fabrics are mostly cotton, nylon, polyester, fiber glass, thermic foil or other fabrics specified by the customer. The fabrics can be coated with various rubber compounds including SBR, butyl, nitrile, neoprene, silicone, natural rubber coatings and others. Zenith’s rubber coated fabrics are used mainly as insulation, protective and noise dampening materials. They are used within maritime, aircraft and mining industries. The development of rubberized fabric market within last decade enabled Zenith also to move into production of new products such as rubber transformer air cushions, rubber rafts, rubber water tanks, safety vests, emergency life rafts and inflatable oil dams.
Total quality management, Kaizen policy approach as well as the strategy to differentiate its products by high quality parameters lay at the foundation of Zenith Group success. This in combination with well-educated technical staff, high investments into product innovation and development allow Zenith to maintain its position of leading global manufacturer of rubber sheets, mats, floorings, and rubberized fabrics.
We are honored and proud of the fact that our company is representing Zenith on the Polish market.