The Hindu Business Line : `Auto component units must invest more in R&D'

INDIAN auto component manufacturers will have to establish their own research and development centres and design "Made in India" products, according to Mr N. Venkataramani, Managing Director, India Pistons Ltd.

Currently, he said, the West looked at India as a low cost and reliable supplier of components. They were, therefore, sharing product design and technology with the component manufacturers here. But, at some point in the future the West would view India as a competitor after which transfer of design technology would not be there and there would also be issues over patent rights.

Getting technology in an IPR regime is going to be increasingly difficulty, he cautioned and emphasised the need for companies to invest more in research and product designing.

He said that the component industry had taken a number of initiatives over the years to improve operational excellence of manufacturers. Indian component manufacturers still have to reach higher levels of production and their scale of operations has to be increased tremendously. India was emerging as a low cost and reliable supplier.

However, the biggest bottleneck, according to him, is in the area of the availability of design engineers and product development engineers that the industry will require.

Participating in a workshop on `India - the world's next automotive hub', organised by the SAE India, southern section, here on Wednesday, Mr Venkataramani emphasised the need to create a large pool of R&D engineers. Vehicle manufacturers also had a role to play and they must involve component makers from the initial stages.

He also underscored the need for greater interaction between industry and academic institutions so that a trained pool of engineers who would be involved in R&D was available.

Prof M.S. Ananth, Director, Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, too called for greater involvement of the industry in academic activities and suggested that industry representatives could take up adjunct faculty positions for a semester or two in the IIT. Academicians too could take a break from teaching and work for a few months in companies. Such a system would give a better idea to both industry and academia on what was required of each other.

He said engineering design was a neglected subjected for which educational institutions required support from industry.

The IIT-M was starting a techno park close to its campus to incubate companies. It had been allotted seven acres of land and its alumni had come forward to set up a 1,00,000 sq ft facility. He wanted industry to make use of this techno park.

Mr S. Nagarajan, Executive Director, Ashok Leyland Ltd, said the commercial vehicle industry would undergo a change with the medium duty vehicles segment not going to be there in the next five years. There would either be light commercial vehicles or multi-axle vehicles.

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