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When Kramski visited Sri Lanka in 1988 on a stop-over from the Maldives in the hope of meeting his former school mate Leelarathne Edirisinghe whom he had not seen since 1970, he had no idea that one day he would set up a factory in this country.

The two were friends from the time they attended the Meisterschule in the city of Kaiserslautern. Times were bad in 1988 hence Kramski proposed to have Leelarathne's son Nilantha undergo a toolmaker training course at his factory in Germany.

Kramski visited Sri Lanka for a second time in January 1993 at which time they met officials from the Board of Investment (BOI). Besides visits to a number of companies in the Katunayake FTZ, Kramski also visited the CGTTI where Leelaratne had been a teacher ever since his return from Germany.

Impressed about the CGTTI student's ability to produce good work pieces on 30-year old German machines and considering the excellent progress Nilantha had made in Germany, Kramski said that Sri Lankans should be able to fabricate sophisticated tooling components like those required back home in his own factory if they were given the appropriate training, modern equipment and conducive working conditions. This then became the cradle of Kramski Lanka.

Apart from Kramski's trust in the Edirisinghes, there were few convicting reasons to start a toolmaking factory in Sri Lanka. Compared to the newly emerging "Tigers" of the region (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) Sri Lanka had nothing comparable to offer.

Besides a seemingly trainable workforce, low labour rates and BOI tax incentives on the one side, there were significant obstacles on the opposite side such as unfriendly labour laws, a ramshackle infrastructure, no support base for the tooling industry and above all a grossly unstable electric power supply which eventually proved to become very expensive in terms of damage to tools and machinery.

Kramski Lanka was founded in June 1993. Kramski believed that despite all odds his concept would lead to success and began sending six young Sri Lankans to Germany for a one-year training stint while the 760 sq. metres factory was being built. These people, supported by a number of German advisors, formed the nucleus of the company by the time it opened in August 1994.

The company's charter was to fabricate basic stamping die components to "Kramski Quality Standards" to support the parent facility in Germany.

Since then the company has steadily increased to its present strength of over 160 employees. By 1999 the company had expanded to 2,130 sq. metres. A key milestone achievement was the entry into the moulding business in 1999 and the attainment of the ISO 9001 certification in the same year. Since the start in 1994, Kramski Lanka has steadily increased its capabilities.

Success comes at with a hefty price tag: Until now, twenty seven employees have undergone training in Germany for one year or more which helped to catapult the company's core competency level with that in Germany. Supported by an array of state-of-the-art machine tools such as 3D high speed milling, jig grinding, computerised EDM, CNC wire cutting and computerised measuring machines, there is virtually nothing in the tool making trade that Kramski Lanka cannot built.

Kramski Lanka is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kramski GmbH in Pforzheim (Germany), a city well known throughout Europe for its precision engineering powers as well as being one of the finest European centres for jewellery manufacturing.

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