The Hundred Factories

Thinking of starting a manufacturing unit in India? Read this before you buy a machine.

S. Choudhary has spent twenty-one years running a corrugated packaging company in Pune. He started with one second-hand machine and grew to two shifts and forty-six people. He has also helped many first-generation manufacturers get started. The Hundred Factories is what he tells them, step by step, with real numbers and no false promises.

The book opens with an honest truth: no business always earns. What does exist is a class of products with repeat, non-discretionary demand. Choudhary shows you how to find them and how to avoid the management mistakes that close most small factories.

What you get:

• The Repeat-Purchase Test for spotting products people must keep buying
• 100 manufacturing businesses across ten families, from food processing and packaging to building materials, agri-inputs, engineering components and healthcare consumables, each with a capital range in lakh, pollution colour, key machine and biggest risk
• The Four Constraints scoring sheet for choosing the right business for your capital, location and skills
• A clear walkthrough of Udyam, GST, factory licences, fire NOC and pollution-board consent
• How to use MUDRA, CGTMSE, PMEGP and state subsidies, plus a real ₹28 lakh project report examined section by section
• What to check when renting a shed and buying used machinery in Ludhiana, Rajkot and Coimbatore
• Line-by-line cost sheets, contribution per machine hour and the working capital cycle explained with real day counts
• Finding your first ten customers, working with distributors, bidding on GeM and getting paid on time, including an exact collections phone script
• Hiring from ITIs, wage and PF/ESI compliance, and keeping good operators
• The Owner's Morning Sheet: one page, filled in by 9 a.m., that keeps you in control
• How to grow safely through a second shift, adjacent products, exports and succession planning

Written in plain language for first-time founders, family business owners and professionals planning a move into manufacturing, this is a practical field guide from someone who has lived every chapter.

It cannot guarantee a profit. It will help you stack the odds in your favour.

S. Choudhary bought his first second-hand slotting machine in Bhosari, Pune, in 2004 and built it into a corrugated packaging company that now runs two shifts. Over more than two decades on the factory floor, he has learned costing, collections, hiring and growth the hard way, often through mistakes he now helps others avoid. Alongside running his own unit, he has spent many years helping first-generation manufacturers choose a product, secure funding and set up their factories. The Hundred Factories gathers that practical advice into one book.