As president and CEO of FANUC India, Sonali Kulkarni handles one of the most complex engineering product manufacturing companies in India. Every second car in India is welded by FANUC robots and almost all motorcycle engines are machined using FANUC's CNC technology. Japan-based FANUC Corporation is the pioneer in Computer Numerical Control (CNC) technology - a method used to automate the control of machine tools. Its Indian arm controls 80 per cent of turnkey shopfloor automation solutions and industrial robots in the country, mainly for the automotive industry. "Despite industrial slowdown and less factory automation, we have been growing revenues by 30 per cent in 2018/19 and 42 per cent a year before that, though FY20 was not that great," says Kulkarni.
About 1,85,000 CNC machines and 10,000 industrial robots made by FANUC work on Indian factory shopfloors. These machines are made in Japan, and Kulkarni's 350-people strong team, spread across 21 locations, ensures they work with precision. Kulkarni moved to Japan two decades ago and joined FANUC. She came back to India and has been heading the companys operations here since 2006.