The surface roughness is within the recommended range of hard turning, i.e. within 1.6 lm for both multilayer coated carbide inserts. From the study, it is evident that, the multilayer coated carbide inserts have performed well at a combination of cutting speeds (150 m/min), feed (0.15 m/min) and depth of cut (0.4 mm). However multilayer TiN coated carbide insert performed well compared to ZrCN coated carbide insert due to steady wear growth and higher tool life.