The Southern India Mills’ Association, popularly known as SIMA was established in 1933 at Coimbatore at the initiative of Late Sir R K Shanmugam Chettiar, the first Finance Minister of independent India to espouse the cause of the textile industry and its development in South India. Chairmanship of SIMA was held by visionaries of textile industry. The Association started with 11 members today has around 500 members.

The installed spindleage of SIMA member mills accounts around 30% of the country’s installed spindles and produces around 50% of country’s cotton yarn production. All leading textiles mills including several spinning, weaving, processing, composite, knitting, garmenting, made-ups and technical textiles units in South India and also few leading textile giants from North India are the members of SIMA due to its unique services. SIMA is the only employers’ organisation equipped with strong data base (over 75 years) for the textile industry and professional / knowledge based secretariat to advise its members in all the functional areas of textile industry.

This has enabled the Association to constantly play a lead role in all the textile policy making bodies of Central Government and State Governments in South India including Planning Commission work group relating to textiles. The unique contributions made by the association in the areas of industrial relations, human resource development, industrial engineering, etc., are known to all the stake holders of the Indian textile industry.

SIMA has been playing a key role in developing the textile industry in India. Being a leading proactive player, SIMA has earned goodwill among the various government departments and influenced in policy making. SIMA is given representation in all the policy making committees of Central and State Government departments and various other statutory bodies. Today, SIMA is the single largest employers’ organisation representing the organised textile industry in the country.

The Industrial Engineering Division started in the year 1986, has assisted more than 500 textile mills in optimising machinery utilisation and constantly improve the labour productivity by conducting Work Study and assisting the mills in practically implementing the simplified work methods, systems and work norms by convincing the workers, trade unions and management. It also conducted Organisation and Method study for right sizing the staff’s strength, evaluate the competency of the staff, fixing salary structures and building a team for the growth of the organisation.

SIMA’s Human Resources Development Centre has been conducting HRD programme on various topics round the year and also tailor-made in-house programmes at mills in the areas of their interest.

SIMA has been organising Texfair exhibitions of Textile machinery spares and accessories manufacturers/ suppliers of all segments of the industry (spinning, weaving, knitting, garmenting and processing) and other supporting services of both domestic and foreign origins since 2001.

SIMA has expertise in the areas of work study, productivity audit, machinery utilization audit, labour audit, cost control study, viability study, energy audit, project report, social audit. SIMA also conducts Bench Marking Survey among its members to rate their standards in the productivity. SIMA holds it’s CEOs Conference every year. SIMA has published the following books:-

• SIMA – A Journey through 75 years
• Job Description for Spinning Mill Employees (both English and Tamil)
• Duties and Responsibilities of Spinning Mills Employees (Tamil)
• Do’s and Don’ts in Spinning Mills (both English and Tamil)
• Spinning Mill Worker’s Handbook (both Tamil and Telugu)
• Recruitment Guidelines and Code of Discipline
• SIMA Review – Monthly In-house Journal
• SIMA Member Mills’ Directory