http://drishtikona.com My online journal with thoughts, opinions, comments and more.. Thu, 17 May 2012 09:03:24 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1.2 http://drishtikona.com/images/favicon.gif http://drishtikona.com en http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/003065.php http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/003065.php#comments Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:54:07 +0000 Indra http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/003065.php report, ‘When to make India a manufacturing base’ in September 2005, McKinsey considered India lagging behind the rest of Asian counties in manufacturing. Multinational corporations never took much initiative to make India its manufacturing base. And perhaps the main hurdle for getting into globally competitive manufacturing businesses at that time was the poor level of infrastructure such as power, road, and port. In March 2012, McKinsey analysis finds that rising demand in India, together with the multinationals’ desire to diversify their production to include low-cost plants in countries other than China could help India’s manufacturing sector to grow six fold by 2025, to $1 trillion, while creating up to 90 million domestic jobs. It advises on how multinationals can win in India. By 2015 the market for manufactured goods from low-cost countries will more than double, to nearly $8 trillion a year. China will probably capture much of the growth. But as McKinsey estimates, ‘up to $5 trillion a year will be up for grabs as global companies seek to diversify production and sources of supply beyond China, both to address rising factor costs there and to chase domestic demand in other countries’. And India must grab that potentials at all cost. For quite some years, India at least wishes to improve upon the manufacturing sector. It reflected in setting up of National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council that finally culminated in recently accepted National Manufacturing Policy. With my association with auto sector, I can vouch for the progress made by the country in manufacturing sector. There is hardly any auto sector globally known company, be it in the business of commercial vehicles, passenger cars, two-wheelers or even tractors and naturally the components that are not present in India with its own manufacturing facility. Many have made their India facility as the global hubs for certain platforms of vehicles. While the older traditional locations such as Pune, Chennai, and NCR expanded its manufacturing facilities to world class standard and added product development centres, new manufacturing clusters are also growing. One such is coming up in Gujarat around Sananda that started with Nano manufacturing facility. Power equipment manufacturing that was the monopoly of BHEL has also seen addition of some big private manufacturing players such as Larson and Toubro, and Bharat Forge. I don’t know if these can stop the onslaught from the Chinese power equipment manufacturers from getting the major orders from the new power plants. It is interesting to note that foreign companies keeping on considering India in their priority and expanding the manufacturing. Recently, ZF Steering, General Cable and Piaggio did that. The government has kick-started domestic electronics manufacturing by pegging its huge orders to value addition done in India. As estimated, the import of electronics will be second only after crude oil. India’s electronic industry must get a boost up with the government encouragement. Innovation plays a key role in determining which countries and companies can succeed in global manufacturing looking two decades down the road. Over the years, India has significantly improved its innovation capability, be it Tata Motors or Mahindra and Mahindra or Godrej or many other small and big manufacturing companies. However, the government can further provide the boost to manufacturing by going aggressively in opening sectors such as defence and railways. A transparent system in government ordering and procurement may indirectly help manufacturing in a big way. The unscrupulous vendors from the countries such as China oil the people in the government and even the defence services to block locally produced manufactured goods. The recent story of Tatra and BMEL shows the loss to the nation’s manufacturing by preferring to continue with screw driver technology instead of phased local manufacturing. It’s unfortunate that the big industrial houses as well as young entrepreneurs still hardly show preference for the setting up of manufacturing businesses. The world is getting into Third Industrial Revolution through digitization of manufacturing as reported in ‘The Economist’: ‘Instead of bashing, bending and cuttng material the way it always has been, 3D printers build things by depositing material, layer by layer. That is why the process is more properly described as additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing is not yet good enough to make a car or an iPhone, but it is already being used to make specialist parts for cars and customised covers for iPhones.’ India still remains laggard in keeping itself contemporary in manufacturing. Indian technocrats must excel in manufacturing. ]]> report, ‘When to make India a manufacturing base’ in September 2005, McKinsey considered India lagging behind the rest of Asian counties in manufacturing. Multinational corporations never took much initiative to make India its manufacturing base. And perhaps the main hurdle for getting into globally competitive manufacturing businesses at that time was the poor level of infrastructure such as power, road, and port. In March 2012, McKinsey analysis finds that rising demand in India, together with the multinationals’ desire to diversify their production to include low-cost plants in countries other than China could help India’s manufacturing sector to grow six fold by 2025, to $1 trillion, while creating up to 90 million domestic jobs. It advises on how multinationals can win in India. By 2015 the market for manufactured goods from low-cost countries will more than double, to nearly $8 trillion a year. China will probably capture much of the growth. But as McKinsey estimates, ‘up to $5 trillion a year will be up for grabs as global companies seek to diversify production and sources of supply beyond China, both to address rising factor costs there and to chase domestic demand in other countries’. And India must grab that potentials at all cost. For quite some years, India at least wishes to improve upon the manufacturing sector. It reflected in setting up of National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council that finally culminated in recently accepted National Manufacturing Policy. With my association with auto sector, I can vouch for the progress made by the country in manufacturing sector. There is hardly any auto sector globally known company, be it in the business of commercial vehicles, passenger cars, two-wheelers or even tractors and naturally the components that are not present in India with its own manufacturing facility. Many have made their India facility as the global hubs for certain platforms of vehicles. While the older traditional locations such as Pune, Chennai, and NCR expanded its manufacturing facilities to world class standard and added product development centres, new manufacturing clusters are also growing. One such is coming up in Gujarat around Sananda that started with Nano manufacturing facility. Power equipment manufacturing that was the monopoly of BHEL has also seen addition of some big private manufacturing players such as Larson and Toubro, and Bharat Forge. I don’t know if these can stop the onslaught from the Chinese power equipment manufacturers from getting the major orders from the new power plants. It is interesting to note that foreign companies keeping on considering India in their priority and expanding the manufacturing. Recently, ZF Steering, General Cable and Piaggio did that. The government has kick-started domestic electronics manufacturing by pegging its huge orders to value addition done in India. As estimated, the import of electronics will be second only after crude oil. India’s electronic industry must get a boost up with the government encouragement. Innovation plays a key role in determining which countries and companies can succeed in global manufacturing looking two decades down the road. Over the years, India has significantly improved its innovation capability, be it Tata Motors or Mahindra and Mahindra or Godrej or many other small and big manufacturing companies. However, the government can further provide the boost to manufacturing by going aggressively in opening sectors such as defence and railways. A transparent system in government ordering and procurement may indirectly help manufacturing in a big way. The unscrupulous vendors from the countries such as China oil the people in the government and even the defence services to block locally produced manufactured goods. The recent story of Tatra and BMEL shows the loss to the nation’s manufacturing by preferring to continue with screw driver technology instead of phased local manufacturing. It’s unfortunate that the big industrial houses as well as young entrepreneurs still hardly show preference for the setting up of manufacturing businesses. The world is getting into Third Industrial Revolution through digitization of manufacturing as reported in ‘The Economist’: ‘Instead of bashing, bending and cuttng material the way it always has been, 3D printers build things by depositing material, layer by layer. That is why the process is more properly described as additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing is not yet good enough to make a car or an iPhone, but it is already being used to make specialist parts for cars and customised covers for iPhones.’ India still remains laggard in keeping itself contemporary in manufacturing. Indian technocrats must excel in manufacturing. ]]> http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/003065.php/feed/ http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/003029.php http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/003029.php#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:38:25 +0000 Indra http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/003029.php Images). Overnight Ratan Tata became an iconic figure of auto industry. India got a unique global recognition of an industrial nation with capability of breakthrough innovation. The world recognized India’s mastery of frugal engineering, frugal manufacturing, and frugal management. However, a number of hurdles and management’s perception about the marketing made Nano’s sales trail far behind the early expectations when it went into regular production at Sanand. Recently Ratan Tata agreed about Nano’s failure to get fast enough volume sales: “I don’t think we were adequately ready with an advertising campaign, a dealer network. The Nano is not a flop. Tata Motors failed to capitalize on the early excitement surrounding the launch of the world’s cheapest car.” Nano didn’t flood the car market as expected. May be that Indian consumers are not willing to buy the cheapest because of a status hurdle. Another product (Image) is facing similar fate. Few months ago, Sibal launched a very ambitious project of $35 tablet- Aakash with a lot of fanfare. It was meant to leapfrog the application of technology in education to assist the millions of school children. Datawind was the manufacturer of the tablet. IIT, Rajasthan was providing technical support and deciding on specification. However, that project is also facing an unimaginable delay or may be premature demise. Many like me are shocked and shore about these halfhearted endeavours. Sometimes I feel like believing that while Aakash was the cheapest solution just for handling the content required for school going children. However with the acquaintance of the top end tablets such as Apple’s iPad available in the market, the users took Aakash as a toy tablet of not much use to them. However, the deficiencies pointed about was its slow speed, heating up quite quickly, poor battery life, the resistive touch-screen, and it supported only Wi-Fi access to the Internet. Interestingly, Aakash has generated huge excitement among gadget geeks and internationally renowned columnists alike. When Datawind offered Aakash’s slightly more expensive cousin, the UbiSlate7+ online on December 14 2011, the company in less than a week got orders for 60,000 tablets. Initially it appeared that the manufacturer was having production constraints, but now as it appears the Aakash will require major up gradation and may not reach the market pretty soon. I wish all IITs and its scientists and engineers would have helped Aakash to succeed once announced and launched by India’s HRD Minister so proudly for the sake of the poor students who can’t afford the i-Pads or similar tablets. As such a right tablet for the school children at even $50 is still not ready though many dreamt of having one many years ago. If Datawind is not a right vendor or the services of some other reputed manufacturers must be sought to get over the drawbacks of the Aakash and make it really useful to the student community. The burden on their back must get reduced. The learning must get interesting and wide. The Aakash project should not end up with adding one more in the list of failed tablets. One must remember the history of Popularly known, OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), that was MIT’s Negroponte's initiative aimed at deploying millions of rugged, ultra low-cost, individually connected laptops to children between six to 12 years of age of developing nations that lack access to such devices. Aakash must serve the same purpose for Indian schools. I wonder if all the children in rural schools are ready to use a gadget like Aakash to bring equity in education. However, the financial result of Apple announced last week tells the huge requirement of a gadget such as i-Pads. And I could get the insight of its manufacturing in China. I wish those interested must read the stories of the wonder called i-Pads and its manufacturing, though as usual some disturbing news came about the hardships in the Chinese manufacturing companies that has become a good masala for some media men. Indian manufacturers, be it Godrej Chhotukool or Amul Auto's tractors, and Indian thinkers such as Vijay Govindarajan, professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, have been the pioneer in frugal engineering. India must go for a real big push to manufacturing electronics and Kapil Sibal must prove himself at least in one project. ---------- PS: Google has 88,100,000 entries for Nano car (Images) and that for Aakash tablet (Images) 3,820,000 as on January, 2012 ar 4 PM in India. ]]> Images). Overnight Ratan Tata became an iconic figure of auto industry. India got a unique global recognition of an industrial nation with capability of breakthrough innovation. The world recognized India’s mastery of frugal engineering, frugal manufacturing, and frugal management. However, a number of hurdles and management’s perception about the marketing made Nano’s sales trail far behind the early expectations when it went into regular production at Sanand. Recently Ratan Tata agreed about Nano’s failure to get fast enough volume sales: “I don’t think we were adequately ready with an advertising campaign, a dealer network. The Nano is not a flop. Tata Motors failed to capitalize on the early excitement surrounding the launch of the world’s cheapest car.” Nano didn’t flood the car market as expected. May be that Indian consumers are not willing to buy the cheapest because of a status hurdle. Another product (Image) is facing similar fate. Few months ago, Sibal launched a very ambitious project of $35 tablet- Aakash with a lot of fanfare. It was meant to leapfrog the application of technology in education to assist the millions of school children. Datawind was the manufacturer of the tablet. IIT, Rajasthan was providing technical support and deciding on specification. However, that project is also facing an unimaginable delay or may be premature demise. Many like me are shocked and shore about these halfhearted endeavours. Sometimes I feel like believing that while Aakash was the cheapest solution just for handling the content required for school going children. However with the acquaintance of the top end tablets such as Apple’s iPad available in the market, the users took Aakash as a toy tablet of not much use to them. However, the deficiencies pointed about was its slow speed, heating up quite quickly, poor battery life, the resistive touch-screen, and it supported only Wi-Fi access to the Internet. Interestingly, Aakash has generated huge excitement among gadget geeks and internationally renowned columnists alike. When Datawind offered Aakash’s slightly more expensive cousin, the UbiSlate7+ online on December 14 2011, the company in less than a week got orders for 60,000 tablets. Initially it appeared that the manufacturer was having production constraints, but now as it appears the Aakash will require major up gradation and may not reach the market pretty soon. I wish all IITs and its scientists and engineers would have helped Aakash to succeed once announced and launched by India’s HRD Minister so proudly for the sake of the poor students who can’t afford the i-Pads or similar tablets. As such a right tablet for the school children at even $50 is still not ready though many dreamt of having one many years ago. If Datawind is not a right vendor or the services of some other reputed manufacturers must be sought to get over the drawbacks of the Aakash and make it really useful to the student community. The burden on their back must get reduced. The learning must get interesting and wide. The Aakash project should not end up with adding one more in the list of failed tablets. One must remember the history of Popularly known, OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), that was MIT’s Negroponte's initiative aimed at deploying millions of rugged, ultra low-cost, individually connected laptops to children between six to 12 years of age of developing nations that lack access to such devices. Aakash must serve the same purpose for Indian schools. I wonder if all the children in rural schools are ready to use a gadget like Aakash to bring equity in education. However, the financial result of Apple announced last week tells the huge requirement of a gadget such as i-Pads. And I could get the insight of its manufacturing in China. I wish those interested must read the stories of the wonder called i-Pads and its manufacturing, though as usual some disturbing news came about the hardships in the Chinese manufacturing companies that has become a good masala for some media men. Indian manufacturers, be it Godrej Chhotukool or Amul Auto's tractors, and Indian thinkers such as Vijay Govindarajan, professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, have been the pioneer in frugal engineering. India must go for a real big push to manufacturing electronics and Kapil Sibal must prove himself at least in one project. ---------- PS: Google has 88,100,000 entries for Nano car (Images) and that for Aakash tablet (Images) 3,820,000 as on January, 2012 ar 4 PM in India. ]]> http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/003029.php/feed/ http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002971.php http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002971.php#comments Sun, 04 Sep 2011 07:43:08 +0000 Indra http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002971.php news in ‘Business Standard’ didn’t surprise me and confirmed my proposition. The company had approached the state government in 2003 to raise funds by selling the excess 314 acres so it could revive it, as its plant is built on 427 acres of land out of the total 741acres or it possessed once. How could a company which didn’t use the land for five or more decades sell it to survive? BS reports, “In 2006, the company got an approval from the Left Front government to sell the land. HM declared Rs 85-crore projected revenue for the sale of this excess land. However, an internal audit done by the state government last November found that HM had sold the land to Bangalore-based Shriram Properties for the development of an integrated IT township at a price of Rs 285 crore in 2007. The state believes that, as the money was not ploughed back into the company, it should be returned to the government as it was the owner of the plot.” As reported, the net profit of Rs 17.20 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year came from selling of land in Gujarat’s Halol that generated an earning of Rs 47.63 crore. Naturally, one can question even that sell, as the state agency offered the land for setting up the plant and not for selling it as real estate at any later date. It hurts me when I hear that the company has already sold most of the machinery and equipment. Many of its empty sheds have tattered ceilings. Hardly a little more than thousand workers are left with almost no engineering staffs. It manufactures few thousands Ambassadors. But the company keeps on coming in press with tall plans of some foreign company proposing to buy stake in it, or its plan for introducing new models or to increase production by five fold. Is it not an intentional misdemenour of a company and a business house that the company can afford with the politicians and bureaucrats with it? Should it not be considered as corruption or does it not involve corruption? Usually all land deals involve corruption? Does the nation require an n Anna Hazare for this type for activities of responsible business house? What percentage of the business houses are involved in such unscrupulous deals” I feel bad as I had decided to work for such a company early in my life and I remained there for whole of my life. It was too late when I realized my fault. ]]> news in ‘Business Standard’ didn’t surprise me and confirmed my proposition. The company had approached the state government in 2003 to raise funds by selling the excess 314 acres so it could revive it, as its plant is built on 427 acres of land out of the total 741acres or it possessed once. How could a company which didn’t use the land for five or more decades sell it to survive? BS reports, “In 2006, the company got an approval from the Left Front government to sell the land. HM declared Rs 85-crore projected revenue for the sale of this excess land. However, an internal audit done by the state government last November found that HM had sold the land to Bangalore-based Shriram Properties for the development of an integrated IT township at a price of Rs 285 crore in 2007. The state believes that, as the money was not ploughed back into the company, it should be returned to the government as it was the owner of the plot.” As reported, the net profit of Rs 17.20 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year came from selling of land in Gujarat’s Halol that generated an earning of Rs 47.63 crore. Naturally, one can question even that sell, as the state agency offered the land for setting up the plant and not for selling it as real estate at any later date. It hurts me when I hear that the company has already sold most of the machinery and equipment. Many of its empty sheds have tattered ceilings. Hardly a little more than thousand workers are left with almost no engineering staffs. It manufactures few thousands Ambassadors. But the company keeps on coming in press with tall plans of some foreign company proposing to buy stake in it, or its plan for introducing new models or to increase production by five fold. Is it not an intentional misdemenour of a company and a business house that the company can afford with the politicians and bureaucrats with it? Should it not be considered as corruption or does it not involve corruption? Usually all land deals involve corruption? Does the nation require an n Anna Hazare for this type for activities of responsible business house? What percentage of the business houses are involved in such unscrupulous deals” I feel bad as I had decided to work for such a company early in my life and I remained there for whole of my life. It was too late when I realized my fault. ]]> http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002971.php/feed/ http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002970.php http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002970.php#comments Fri, 02 Sep 2011 23:50:02 +0000 Indra http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002970.php rough ride today. Reasons are many but naturally the rise in the fuel prices and the interest rates are the major ones. Rising inflation is another moral deterrent. Recent monthly sale figures for almost all manufacturers are going down. However, the domestic manufacturers are performing worse. ‘Tata Motors witnessed the steepest fall, with numbers crashing by 33%. The company sold 16,829 units in the month against 25,212 units in the same month last year. Alarmingly, the cheapest car, Nano could manage sales of only 1,202 units, 85% lower compared to August last year.’ All the companies are offering heavy discounts to push sales. With festival seasons drawing nearer, will the sales improve? A New Manufacturing Hub: Surprisingly, the bad news of slowing economy, particularly the auto sector is not dissuading the foreign auto majors to enter India. Left outs are rushing. Sanand, the unknown to any one even in India before the decision to relocate Nano plant from Singur in West Bengal, is rapidly growing as a new manufacturing hub for automobiles. http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/psa-peugeot-re-enters-india/447828/ French automobile major, PSA Peugeot Citroen has recently announced its plan to set up a vehicle manufacturing facility near Sanand at an investment of Rs 4,000 crore ($650 million) with an initial capacity of 165,000 vehicles a year, that can be expanded to 340,000 units. Ford India had earlier announced investment of Rs 4,000 crore to locate its second plant in Sanand with a capacity to produce 240,000 units a year initially and an engine plant with an initial annual capacity of 270,000 engines. Is it an encouraging indication? Nissan Motor Co that was late to join the race, has already launched its Micra and has started producing Sunny sedan too in its Chennai based manufacturing plant. The good news is that Nissan will source as much as 85% of the parts for the Sunny from vendors in India. Interestingly, Renault Nissan Alliance India is credited with producing one lakh petrol engines in a record period of 15 months. I am of an opinion that the government now starts discouraging any left out global entrants to make the already manufacturing ones to stabilize the facilities and grow for domestic as well as export market so that indigenization increases. Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) has found a way out to cut down the cost through increasing the overall indigenization level from 75% at present to 90 per cent in two years. A strong auto component sector goes as advantage for the foreign auto majors to find India attractive besides its big enough market. Maruti- Suzuki at one stage was not ready to indigenize gears has a diesel engine and transmission-producing joint venture company, Suzuki Powertrain India. It’s working to develop an all-new diesel engine range, the technology where Suzuki is not strong. Suzuki Powertrain India exports engines to Suzuki's European operation, had recently expanded its capacity by 25 per cent to 300,000 engines per annum. It certainly improves the potential for manufacturing. Additionally, India has its auto component industry growing significantly that was by 34 per cent last financial year taking the total turnover to $39.9 billion. Unfortunately, while exports grew by a robust 54 per cent to $5.2 billion, imports increased by 30 per cent to $8.5 billion. I wish the OEMs would have encouraged the auto component sector with R&D support. Still major complex components such as one for automatic transmission remain on import list. The component industry invested close to $2-2.5 billion on capacity expansion projects in 2010-11. As estimated, the auto component industry is expected to double its workforce to four million workers over the next two years. I get pleasantly surprised and excited to know that a minor company Amul has already entered the Business of 5’Cs namely Connecting rods, Crank Shafts, Cylinder Blocks, Cylinder Heads, and Cam Shafts for the Automotive & Engineering Industry. The presence of a mature auto component industry in India makes its more attractive for OEMs to come to India without much hesitation. However, the labour unions have started troubling the auto manufacturers. The state governments as well as the central government must intervene to get a positive way out to avoid the layoffs and lockouts. It’s must be taken seriously on proactive manner, otherwise all the dreams of developing India as global hub of small compact cars will remain dream only. Particularly, the HR heads of the MNCs will be on test to match the management policies of the parent companies with the local conditions without creating abrasions. ]]> rough ride today. Reasons are many but naturally the rise in the fuel prices and the interest rates are the major ones. Rising inflation is another moral deterrent. Recent monthly sale figures for almost all manufacturers are going down. However, the domestic manufacturers are performing worse. ‘Tata Motors witnessed the steepest fall, with numbers crashing by 33%. The company sold 16,829 units in the month against 25,212 units in the same month last year. Alarmingly, the cheapest car, Nano could manage sales of only 1,202 units, 85% lower compared to August last year.’ All the companies are offering heavy discounts to push sales. With festival seasons drawing nearer, will the sales improve? A New Manufacturing Hub: Surprisingly, the bad news of slowing economy, particularly the auto sector is not dissuading the foreign auto majors to enter India. Left outs are rushing. Sanand, the unknown to any one even in India before the decision to relocate Nano plant from Singur in West Bengal, is rapidly growing as a new manufacturing hub for automobiles. http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/psa-peugeot-re-enters-india/447828/ French automobile major, PSA Peugeot Citroen has recently announced its plan to set up a vehicle manufacturing facility near Sanand at an investment of Rs 4,000 crore ($650 million) with an initial capacity of 165,000 vehicles a year, that can be expanded to 340,000 units. Ford India had earlier announced investment of Rs 4,000 crore to locate its second plant in Sanand with a capacity to produce 240,000 units a year initially and an engine plant with an initial annual capacity of 270,000 engines. Is it an encouraging indication? Nissan Motor Co that was late to join the race, has already launched its Micra and has started producing Sunny sedan too in its Chennai based manufacturing plant. The good news is that Nissan will source as much as 85% of the parts for the Sunny from vendors in India. Interestingly, Renault Nissan Alliance India is credited with producing one lakh petrol engines in a record period of 15 months. I am of an opinion that the government now starts discouraging any left out global entrants to make the already manufacturing ones to stabilize the facilities and grow for domestic as well as export market so that indigenization increases. Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) has found a way out to cut down the cost through increasing the overall indigenization level from 75% at present to 90 per cent in two years. A strong auto component sector goes as advantage for the foreign auto majors to find India attractive besides its big enough market. Maruti- Suzuki at one stage was not ready to indigenize gears has a diesel engine and transmission-producing joint venture company, Suzuki Powertrain India. It’s working to develop an all-new diesel engine range, the technology where Suzuki is not strong. Suzuki Powertrain India exports engines to Suzuki's European operation, had recently expanded its capacity by 25 per cent to 300,000 engines per annum. It certainly improves the potential for manufacturing. Additionally, India has its auto component industry growing significantly that was by 34 per cent last financial year taking the total turnover to $39.9 billion. Unfortunately, while exports grew by a robust 54 per cent to $5.2 billion, imports increased by 30 per cent to $8.5 billion. I wish the OEMs would have encouraged the auto component sector with R&D support. Still major complex components such as one for automatic transmission remain on import list. The component industry invested close to $2-2.5 billion on capacity expansion projects in 2010-11. As estimated, the auto component industry is expected to double its workforce to four million workers over the next two years. I get pleasantly surprised and excited to know that a minor company Amul has already entered the Business of 5’Cs namely Connecting rods, Crank Shafts, Cylinder Blocks, Cylinder Heads, and Cam Shafts for the Automotive & Engineering Industry. The presence of a mature auto component industry in India makes its more attractive for OEMs to come to India without much hesitation. However, the labour unions have started troubling the auto manufacturers. The state governments as well as the central government must intervene to get a positive way out to avoid the layoffs and lockouts. It’s must be taken seriously on proactive manner, otherwise all the dreams of developing India as global hub of small compact cars will remain dream only. Particularly, the HR heads of the MNCs will be on test to match the management policies of the parent companies with the local conditions without creating abrasions. ]]> http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002970.php/feed/ http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002966.php http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002966.php#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:13:03 +0000 Indra http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002966.php Images-Nano Cars I wonder if Tata Motors had undertaken a detail market research for Nano before deciding to set up a plant for it or it was totally unilateral initiative, decision or wish of Ratan Tata as expressed by him publicly that was carried out by the technocrats and managers of the company as was the practice in good old days. Even I myself experienced similar imposition of the CEOs or the private owner. All along I have been expecting and promoting for the generation of a big volume for this car to become a globally accepted entry car.Nano sales in this July are just dismal. The number slipped to 3,260 units from 9,000 units in the corresponding month last year. Tata Motors, as reported, have planned to set up plants in Latin America, Africa as well as South=East Asia. It has plans to promote and sell Nanos to the employees of the companies of Tata Group. Can it keep the production of Nanos growing and reaching the scale expected by the company? Rural India could have provided a good market for it. But as all the roads that its rural owners are to use in course of their routine outings are not good enough, its large scale rural penetration will take time. However, perhaps there are other sectors with good potentials where Tata Motors could have targeted to sell Nanos. In every family that is having one or bigger cars must have one Nano too. It can be used for taking kids to the schools, coaching classes or tutors or to send the driver to buy few loafs of bread or vegetables. It can always be a kitty car unless the owner needs to show off her status through a huge car. For the Gen Y entering job market with many with financial constraints, Nano can be made an attractive buy as the first car. For, old men like me, living in a quiet little town or NCR with gradually reducing outside engagements, Nano can certainly be a choice. Unfortunately, I have not found any one to approach me or any of my friends to sell Nano. Tata Motors missed on marketing Nano initially with a hope of automatic queuing up of its dealers by its buyers. It must go for marketing now to generate a consistently growing volume. Nano’s launch created a wave of India’s arrival in product design. The product was born out of a dream of Ratan Tata. Will Tata Motors make his dream coming true, and realized? Can the professors of IIMs and other top management schools of India and abroad make this a case study or a subject of a research project? ]]> Images-Nano Cars I wonder if Tata Motors had undertaken a detail market research for Nano before deciding to set up a plant for it or it was totally unilateral initiative, decision or wish of Ratan Tata as expressed by him publicly that was carried out by the technocrats and managers of the company as was the practice in good old days. Even I myself experienced similar imposition of the CEOs or the private owner. All along I have been expecting and promoting for the generation of a big volume for this car to become a globally accepted entry car.Nano sales in this July are just dismal. The number slipped to 3,260 units from 9,000 units in the corresponding month last year. Tata Motors, as reported, have planned to set up plants in Latin America, Africa as well as South=East Asia. It has plans to promote and sell Nanos to the employees of the companies of Tata Group. Can it keep the production of Nanos growing and reaching the scale expected by the company? Rural India could have provided a good market for it. But as all the roads that its rural owners are to use in course of their routine outings are not good enough, its large scale rural penetration will take time. However, perhaps there are other sectors with good potentials where Tata Motors could have targeted to sell Nanos. In every family that is having one or bigger cars must have one Nano too. It can be used for taking kids to the schools, coaching classes or tutors or to send the driver to buy few loafs of bread or vegetables. It can always be a kitty car unless the owner needs to show off her status through a huge car. For the Gen Y entering job market with many with financial constraints, Nano can be made an attractive buy as the first car. For, old men like me, living in a quiet little town or NCR with gradually reducing outside engagements, Nano can certainly be a choice. Unfortunately, I have not found any one to approach me or any of my friends to sell Nano. Tata Motors missed on marketing Nano initially with a hope of automatic queuing up of its dealers by its buyers. It must go for marketing now to generate a consistently growing volume. Nano’s launch created a wave of India’s arrival in product design. The product was born out of a dream of Ratan Tata. Will Tata Motors make his dream coming true, and realized? Can the professors of IIMs and other top management schools of India and abroad make this a case study or a subject of a research project? ]]> http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002966.php/feed/ http://drishtikona.com/archives/uncategorized/002923.php http://drishtikona.com/archives/uncategorized/002923.php#comments Fri, 10 Jun 2011 04:25:15 +0000 Indra http://drishtikona.com/archives/uncategorized/002923.php

Images of Mini-Xylo

M&M is all set to launch a mini version of its popular car, Xylo. The trial production for the car has already begun in all likelihood at Chakan. I don’t want to buy if it be something like Wagon R. I want the present Xylo cut from middle to shorten it. It must look strong and be powerful, preferably keeping the same 2.50 litre diesel engine with same tires. I wish it to be priced around Rs 5 lakh. As I looked into Google I found a huge number of entries on mini- Xylo and also images. In 1990s, I worked with Mitsubishi for Hindustan Motors for bringing Minica in India. Mitsubishi had a wonderful product in Mini-Pajero. As it seems it still survives. I had longed that Mini-Pajero (images) got manufactured in India. It was not a viable proposition. India didn’t have a market for that. Hindustan Motors had come with Lancer, but had dropped small car Minica. Later on Hindudtan Motors did also produce Pajero. But that was a high-end vehicle. Will Mini- Xylo be of the quality that Mini-Pajero was or will it be better? A recent write up in Financial Express, Pawan Goel, President of auto division of M&M revealed that Goel had an internship in Hindustan Motors in 1972. Goel would have certainly come to me. Will he listen to my request to get my dream mini Xylo as I want it? ]]>

Images of Mini-Xylo

M&M is all set to launch a mini version of its popular car, Xylo. The trial production for the car has already begun in all likelihood at Chakan. I don’t want to buy if it be something like Wagon R. I want the present Xylo cut from middle to shorten it. It must look strong and be powerful, preferably keeping the same 2.50 litre diesel engine with same tires. I wish it to be priced around Rs 5 lakh. As I looked into Google I found a huge number of entries on mini- Xylo and also images. In 1990s, I worked with Mitsubishi for Hindustan Motors for bringing Minica in India. Mitsubishi had a wonderful product in Mini-Pajero. As it seems it still survives. I had longed that Mini-Pajero (images) got manufactured in India. It was not a viable proposition. India didn’t have a market for that. Hindustan Motors had come with Lancer, but had dropped small car Minica. Later on Hindudtan Motors did also produce Pajero. But that was a high-end vehicle. Will Mini- Xylo be of the quality that Mini-Pajero was or will it be better? A recent write up in Financial Express, Pawan Goel, President of auto division of M&M revealed that Goel had an internship in Hindustan Motors in 1972. Goel would have certainly come to me. Will he listen to my request to get my dream mini Xylo as I want it? ]]> http://drishtikona.com/archives/uncategorized/002923.php/feed/ http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002901.php http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002901.php#comments Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:25:09 +0000 Indra http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002901.php http://drishtikona.com/archives/manufacturing/002901.php/feed/