India’s manufacturing sector is rapidly progressing towards higher levels of precision, performance, and global competitiveness, placing advanced heat treatment and surface engineering technologies at the centre of industrial innovation and manufacturing excellence.
Over the past three decades, UNITHERM Group has emerged as one of the country’s leading metallurgical and surface treatment solution providers, building a diversified ecosystem that spans atmospheric and vacuum heat treatment, furnace technology, PVD coatings, and specialised engineering services.
Under the leadership of Aditya Bakshi, Managing Director, UNITHERM Group has consistently focused on technological innovation, customer-centric solutions, and operational excellence while aligning its growth strategy with the emerging needs of industries such as automotive, aerospace, defence, renewable energy, and electric mobility.
In this exclusive interview with Gear Technology India, Sushmita Das, Associate Editor, interacts with Aditya Bakshi about UNITHERM Group’s remarkable journey, its integrated approach to delivering customer value, the role of digitalisation and sustainability in shaping its growth, and the company’s vision for advancing India’s manufacturing competitiveness through metallurgical excellence and continuous innovation.
Aditya Bakshi,
Managing Director,
UNITHERM Group
Our vision has always been to create a world-class surface treatment solutions group that enables Indian manufacturing to compete globally. What began as a single business has evolved into a comprehensive ecosystem covering atmospheric heat treatment, vacuum heat treatment, furnace technology, surface engineering, and metallurgical solutions.
The guiding principle has remained unchanged: understand customer challenges, invest in technology and continuously expand our capabilities. Every business and partnership within the Group has been built with the objective of delivering greater value to our customers while strengthening India’s manufacturing ecosystem.
Modern manufacturing demands far more than process execution. Customers expect consistency, technical expertise, shorter lead times, and continuous improvement.
At UNITHERM Group, we work closely with customers to understand the application and performance requirements of every component. Our focus is on enhancing wear resistance, fatigue life, dimensional stability and overall reliability while maintaining process consistency and delivery commitments.
By combining metallurgical expertise with advanced process control, we help customers improve product quality, reduce lifecycle costs, and enhance manufacturing efficiency.
Customers increasingly prefer strategic partners rather than multiple vendors. Through our Group companies and joint ventures, we offer a broad range of metallurgical and surface engineering solutions under one umbrella.
This integrated approach enables customers to access specialised expertise, faster technical support, reduced development cycles and consistent quality standards across different processes. It also helps us support customers from prototype development through full-scale production.
Ultimately, our goal is to become a trusted partner in improving component performance and manufacturing excellence.
Technology is transforming every aspect of manufacturing, and surface treatment is no exception. We continue to invest in advanced furnace technologies, process monitoring systems, automation, digital process control, and data-driven quality management. Precision, traceability and repeatability are becoming increasingly important, especially in sectors such as automotive, aerospace, defence, and electric mobility.
Going forward, innovation will focus on higher process capability, enhanced energy efficiency, improved metallurgical outcomes, and smarter manufacturing systems.
Digitalisation is helping manufacturers achieve greater visibility, control and consistency.
Across the Group, we are adopting advanced monitoring systems, process automation, data analytics, and digital reporting tools to improve operational efficiency and process reliability. These initiatives help us minimise variability, optimise productivity and strengthen quality assurance.
For customers, this translates into greater confidence, enhanced traceability, faster response times and more reliable process outcomes.
Quality is deeply embedded in our culture and operations.
Our facilities operate through rigorous process controls, standardised operating procedures, continuous monitoring and highly skilled metallurgical teams in every facility. We continuously invest in training, testing infrastructure, process validation and customer-focused quality systems.
Our commitment to excellence is reinforced through internationally recognised standards such as ISO 9001 and IATF 16949, with our heat treatment processes aligned to CQI-9 requirements. As part of our continuous improvement journey and commitment to serving global aerospace and high-precision industries, we are also progressing towards NADCAP accreditation.
Beyond certifications, our greatest strength lies in our people and our relentless focus on delivering metallurgical excellence that consistently exceeds customer expectations.
Sustainability is no longer optional—it is a business imperative. We continuously focus on improving energy efficiency, optimising furnace performance, reducing process waste, and adopting environmentally responsible operating practices. Alongside these initiatives, we are actively exploring and increasing the use of renewable energy across our operations to reduce our carbon footprint and build a more sustainable manufacturing ecosystem.
As manufacturing evolves, we believe sustainable operations will become a key differentiator, and we remain committed to supporting both our customers’ sustainability goals and our own environmental responsibilities.
These sectors represent some of the most exciting opportunities for Indian manufacturing.
They require advanced materials, specialised surface treatment processes, strict quality requirements and complete process reliability. UNITHERM Group has been actively investing in technology, capabilities and expertise to support these evolving needs.
Our diverse portfolio of services and technical capabilities positions us well to serve both established industries and next-generation manufacturing sectors as they continue to grow.
People are the foundation of our success!
We focus on creating an environment where employees can learn, grow and contribute meaningfully. Continuous training, leadership development, technical learning and cross-functional exposure are key elements of our people strategy.
We are proud to foster a culture built on trust, collaboration, ownership and continuous improvement. By investing in our people, we ensure that the organisation remains innovative, agile and future-ready.
Our vision is to establish UNITHERM Group as a leading brand in metallurgical and surface treatment solutions.
Over the next decade, we will continue investing in technology, talent, capacity expansion and strategic partnerships. We aim to strengthen our leadership position while supporting customers across emerging and established industries.
India is rapidly becoming a global manufacturing hub, and we see UNITHERM Group playing an important role in enabling that growth through technical excellence, innovation and a commitment to delivering trust through metallurgical excellence.
Group Companies:
