With four manufacturing plants situated in the National Capital Region (NCR, India), and one in Rwanda, the Sahasra Group has emerged as the leading exporter of electronic products and services. Sahasra Electronics (Rwanda) Pvt Ltd was established in 2012 and is close to four years old now. It started out from a single office, moved to a full-fledged showroom in the heart of the city of Kigali, and eventually to the high-tech manufacturing facility situated at the Kigali SEZ. In spite of the many challenges along the way, steady growth has been helping Sahasra in slowly becoming a well-known brand across India and Rwanda.
By Belal Khan
It all started when the Rwandan Development Board (RDB) delegation visited the company’s corporate headquarters in Noida, in 2011. Glad to see that the company was making LED products in India, the delegates invited Sahasra to invest in Rwanda.
“Our CMD initially was not too serious about the offer, but eventually took it up and visited Rwanda purely as a tourist to see the opportunities available. To his surprise, it turned out to be a perfect destination for investment, especially in energy-saving products. The weather conditions, cleanliness, the go-getting attitude of the locals, availability of young manpower, a business-friendly government, the sops offered for investments and the friendly people, all made it a perfect mix, and we took the first step of opening up a trading office in Rwanda,” says Varun Manwani, director, Sahasra group.
The vision behind the Rwanda facility
In 2011, the Indian market had begun to get crowded and consolidation was round the corner. It had become increasingly tough to operate in the market as a brand, and only possible to be a part of the supply chain to another brand. The CMD of the Sahasra Group decided to stay away from trying to build a brand in India and instead do so elsewhere. With the opportunity in Rwanda having presented itself, it was clear that this was the way ahead for the organisation in the LED lighting and energy sectors.
| Major products | LED bulbs, spotlights, tubelights, downlights, panel lights, canopy lights, floodlights, bay lights, streetlights |
| Production capacity | 100,000 units per month, Scalable to 300,000 per month |
| Factory location | C-4, Masoro, Kigali SEZ, Gasabo District, Kigali, Rwanda, East Africa |
| Machinery available | SMT lines, wave soldering machines, bulb holder clinching machines, test racks, digital power sources, oscilloscopes, AC/DC meters, burn-in equipment, etc |
| Workforce | 12 at present; to increase to 25 by end of 2016-17 |
| Annual turnover | US $0.5 million currently; US $2 million by the end of 2016-17 |
| Total capex | The total capex so far is US $3 million |
| Source of funding | The source of funds is internal investment from the parent group |
| Areas of expertise | LED lighting products; new products to be introduced are solar inverters and LED kits for rural areas, flash USBs and other smart productsr |
| Key market segments | Rwanda and all other East African countries like Burundi, DR Congo, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya |
| Contact details | Suresh Negi – GM, Rue Nyabugogo, Sakumi Plaza, Opp ETS Verma, P.O. Box No. 4558, Kigali, Rwanda; Ph: 0786780893, 0787396820; www.sahasraelectronics.com; serpl@sahasraelectronics.com |
Products manufactured at the facility
The facility is a high-tech electronics unit capable of manufacturing LED lights and other electronic products, which Sahasra plans to bring out within the next few months. Currently, what’s being manufactured are LED products such as LED bulbs, spotlights, tubelights, canopy lights, downlights, panel lights, bay lights, floodlights and streetlights. The company plans to introduce other products such as solar LED kits for rural areas, emergency bulbs, USB devices, and other smart and high-tech products within the next six to twelve months.
Manufacturing capacity
The current manufacturing capacity is 100,000 units of different products, per month. This is scalable to 300,000 units within the existing facility, and there is additional space for constructing and increasing manufacturing capacity to 1 million units a month.
A focus on quality
The R&D lab is fully equipped with a range of testing equipment, such as the Gonio photometer, integrating sphere with spectrophotometer, LED driver tester, surge generator, ESD generator, etc, to validate the drivers and complete luminaires for wattage, CRI, CCT, chromaticity coordinates, total luminous flux, voltage, current, power factor, efficiency and aging tests as per LM79 requirements.
Major equipment
- SMT line
- Wave soldering machines
- Bulb holder clinching machines
- Manual insertion lines
- Burn-in lines
- Test racks for panel lights, tubelights, bulbs, spotlights, canopy lights and downlighters
- HV testing equipment, power analysers, AC/DC supplies as well as a complete lab for R&D
Testing lab
As part of the test and qualification process, all new products are passed through strict quality control tests for production validation. All components are certified at the headquarters in India before being sent out to Rwanda for product assembly. Every fully manufactured product is subject to high quality standards at the OQC stage, with a traceability number on each product that can be traced back to the LEDs, drivers, PCBs and mechanicals being used in the product.
All products go through a three to eight hour burn-in cycle before dispatch to any customer, and a record is maintained for all products that leave the factory.
“We plan to introduce products such as solar LED kits for rural areas, emergency bulbs, USB devices, and other smart products within the next six to twelve months.
Varun Manwani, director, Sahasra group
