HISTORY

De Boer Damle (India) Pvt. Ltd. was registered in Pune on December 18, 2009. It is a joint venture between the renowned De Boer Group from The Netherlands – world’s leading supplier of soft mud brick shaping installations, and Mr. Anand Damle – a brick industry expert of international repute and CEO of Damle Clay Structurals, Pune. Notably, it stands as the first European company to establish its manufacturing base in India within the heavy clay machinery sector. Together, De Boer and Mr. Damle share a wealth of experience, spanning more than 125 years, in providing machinery and technical support to the international clay brick industry.

We manufacture soft mud brick moulding machines – called “Ishtika Mixerpresses”- which consist of a mixer, a mould chain, a press block, a mould washing station and a mould sander. ‘Ishtika’ is a Sanskrit word taken from the Vedas - the oldest literature known to man - meaning 'fired clay brick'. It also means 'useful' and 'auspicious'. Final adjustment of water content in the raw-mix can be done by adding 5 to 7 % water in the mixer. Our Ishtika Mixerpress comes in 4 ‘models’ – each shaping 5, 7, 8 or 9 bricks per stroke and producing 4,500, 6,300, 7,200 and 8,100 bricks per hour, respectively, at 15 strokes per minute speed. The 7-mould model shapes 10”x5”x3” or ‘Bangla’-size bricks while all other models shape 9”x4⅓”x3” regular-size bricks.

All the said models can be designed to shape bricks of other sizes (viz. 9”x6”x4” size ‘double’ bricks) also. The sander can be either ‘top’ (which sprays sand on the frog plate only to shape ‘waterstruck’ bricks) or ‘bottom’ (which sprays sand on all 5 sides of a mould to shape ‘sanded’ bricks) or both.

We also manufacture ‘Sambharak’ Box Feeder, ‘Vipeshak’ Roller Crusher-Cum-Stone Separator, Disintegrator, Automatic Pallet Handling System and High-Speed Cutting System (comprising moving carriage slab cutter, brick / block cutter and pallet loading conveyor) for extruded clay slabs, Belt Conveyor, Ascender/Descender, Pallet Gripper, Moving Fan, Stack Gripper (Crane or Forklift-baded). ‘Sambharak’ means uniform and continuous feeder and ‘Vipeshak’ means special-purpose crusher in Sanskrit. An ‘Indus’ Dryer is under development at present. Providing pre-investment services (viz. clay testing, facilitating visits to operational projects, project planning including pre-engineering and preparation of ‘bankable’ feasibility reports and facilitating project financing) and post-commissioning training, troubleshooting, up-gradation and handholding services are our major strengths.

We have so far commissioned 12 Ishtika Mixerpress-based installations - 1 near Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), 1 near Madurai (Tamil Nadu), 1 near Trichy (Tamil Nadu), 4 near Anekal (South-East of Bangalore, Karnataka), 1 near Mahabubabad (Dist. Warangal, Telangana), 1 near Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh), 1 at Barh near Patna (Bihar), 1 project at Umalwad near Jaysingpur (Dist. Kolhapur, Maharashtra) and 1 Ishtika Mixerpress has been shifted from Madurai, refurbished and installed for a customer at Bavla near Ahmedabad (Gujarat). 1 project is under erection at Darbhanga (Bihar), 2 projects are under manufacture for customers from Isanpur near Ahmedabad (Gujarat) and Madurai (Tamil Nadu) and several more are under different stages of finalization.

We supplied a High-speed Cutting System (comprising moving carriage slab cutter, brick / block cutter and pallet loading conveyor) for extruded clay slabs to a customer in Nagpur (Maharashtra) as a SPM (Special Purpose Machine) Project.

With active help and under the guidance of De Boer Machines Nederland B. V., we have recently designed, manufactured, erected and commissioned a 100 per cent export-oriented facing brick project at Godhra (Gujarat). It incorporates a loose-mould clay brick shaping system integrating 3 techniques – press block (as provided in our ‘Ishtika’ Mixerpresses), Hubert and hand-throwing. It is one of the most sophisticated brick plants operating in India at present.

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ABOUT US

VISIONARY HORIZONS

Vision:

To lead sustainable development of clay brick industry of India and the developing world by developing, manufacturing, selling and installing soft mud brick molding machines and other machines, equipment and systems required for integrating the same into the overall brick making process; and to achieve total customer satisfaction and loyalty through product and service quality consistent with world standards.

Mission:

To contribute significantly to the sustainable transformation of traditional clay brick industry of India and the developing world into a fully mechanized, automated and resource-efficient industry.

Values :

Continuous improvement
Innovation
Discipline at work
Customer focus
Statutory compliance
Cost-conscious operation

ANAND DAMLE

PARTNER

Mr. Anand Damle, 67 years old, is the Indian Partner of the Joint Venture (JV) Company - De Boer Damle (India) Pvt. Ltd. He has been its first Managing Director for the past 14+ years and stepped down from the position on 1st April 2024 to make way for Mr. Anish Jain to take his place. However, Mr. Damle still continues to head the marketing function of the Company.

Mr. Damle holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from B.I.T.S., Pilani and M.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from I.I.T., Bombay. He is the founder consultant of MITCON – a State-Government consultancy organization of Maharashtra - and founder Trainer-Motivator of MCED (Maharashtra Centre for Entrepreneurship Development) – another State-Government organization. He started his own enterprise on 1st January 1987 for providing ‘turn-key’ project services to the brick industry in the developing world. Since then, he has implemented more than 50 diverse projects in India and abroad - from lowly brick fields to sophisticated plants – involving soft-mud, extrusion and semi-dry technologies and a variety of clay preparation / material handling systems and continuous kilns. Apart from fired clay bricks and fired flyash-clay bricks, he has also designed and commissioned projects manufacturing cured FAL-G and autoclaved calcium silicate bricks.

Mr. Damle has over 40 years’ experience in providing project engineering and consultancy services in the design, management, erection, commissioning, operation and marketing of brick manufacturing plants. He has played a key role in the introduction of several new technologies in the Indian brick industry, viz. vertical shaft brick kiln and soft-mud moulding machines, as also in setting-up brick plants incorporating industrial waste materials. Mr. Damle has so far worked on 2 UNDP-GEF projects in India aimed at improving energy efficiency of her clay brick sector. He is involved in several development projects in brick sector in India, Nepal, Vietnam and Cameroon funded by respective Governments and bilateral agencies. He is an experienced trainer in the brick sector. He has designed and conducted India's first 6-monthly Vocational Training Course on Brick Making and conducted several 1-day to 3-day Workshops. He is the author of many research papers published in reputed national/international magazines and has been a member of the Editorial Committee of ‘Tile & Brick International Manual’ since June 1996, which is being published from Germany.

ANISH JAIN

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Mr. Anish Jain, 59 years old, took over charge from Mr. Damle as the new Managing Director of De Boer Damle (India) Pvt. Ltd. with effect from 1st April 2024. Before getting promoted to this position, he was the General Manager - Operations of the Company. He holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Regional Engineering College, Calicut (now NIIT). He brings in 20 years’ experience in owning and managing a small-scale industry and 16 years’ service experience, including 14 years with De Boer Damle (India) Pvt. Ltd. In his previous role as General Manager – Operations, Mr. Jain oversaw key responsibilities such as planning and coordinating production, including vendor development. He also oversaw erection/commissioning activities, quality control, cost estimation, spares sales, troubleshooting, major maintenance, and technology up-gradation jobs at customer sites.

MILIND KADUSKAR

MANAGER - DESIGN & PROJECTS

Mr. Milind Kaduskar, 59 years old, is the Design Manager of the company. With a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT Engineering College, Pune, he brings in a wealth of 35 years of design experience gained in reputed manufacturing, automation, and robotics companies in Pune. In his role, Mr. Kaduskar is tasked with key responsibilities such as preparing 2-D/3-D manufacturing/assembly drawings for the shop floor and vendors. He actively contributes to developing new products and systems based on customer feedback and market trends. Additionally, he provides continuous design support to both shop floor and site activities, overseeing quality control, cost estimation, and the preparation of machinery layouts tailored to different sites.

Why Soft Mud Technology ?

Soft mud moulding is nothing but mechanized ‘hand-moulding’ and hence, the first ‘natural’ step towards mechanization. Soft mud moulded bricks appear very much like hand-moulded bricks (including ‘frogs’) except that they are more uniform in size and shape. This makes their market acceptance very easy.
Ishtika Mixerpress exerts only so much pressure on the prepared raw-mix that is necessary for proper shaping of green bricks thereby ensuring a reasonably ‘open’ brick body that offers the possibility of sun drying without fear of cracking.
Soft mud moulding reduces labour intensity and dependence on skilled ‘moulders’ which is one of the most serious challenges faced by the industry today.
Because of ‘demoulding’ being done on pallets, it offers possibility of vertical space utilization and substantial reduction in area required for drying. Soft mud moulded bricks can be dried in multi-layer dryers only if they are supported on pallets.
Thorough mixing of raw-mix components in the mixer results into uniform firing, better crushing strength and lower breakages during handling.
In general, soft mud moulding process can incorporate much higher percentage of ‘non-plastic’ wastes, fuels and / or soils and requires less intensive clay preparation as compared to other shaping processes. This solves the disposal problem of the waste generating agencies; minimizes the requirement of primarily extracted clays and fossil fuels; increases the porosity of fired bricks making them lightweight and thermally / acoustically more insulating and improves the enterprise profitability by saving costly external fuel, which forms 25- 40 % of cost of production of bricks. Lightweight bricks also require less transportation energy and can be handled easily by labourers thereby improving their comfort level and speed of work.