Localisation
"In addition to it, highlight of the plant is its localised supply chain. Around 70 percent our supply chain is localised," he adds. In line with Government of India's Make in India initiative, Alstom has been expanding its wings in the country. Speaking about the importance India in the company's global footprint, Ling Fang, Senior Vice President Asia Pacific, Alstom says, "In the Asia Pacific region, we
have workforce of around 5,000 people out of whom 4,000
employees are located in India. Thats states the importance of
the country for us. India is the second largest manufacturing
base after France for the company," Fang underlines. "Good
infrastructure and good network of suppliers make us spread
our wings here," she adds.

With these features, the Sri City plant caters to the domestic as well as international market. "The products that this facility produces are at par with international standards. There is no difference in the manufacturing process of our plant in France and India," she adds.

New orders
Recently, the plant successfully completed 22 Metropolis trains for Sydney Metro. "Speaking of the domestic market, the site has delivered metros for the cities of Chennai, Kochi and Lucknow. It will begin work on its second export order for the light metro project in Montreal from early 2019 while production for Mumbai Metro Line 3 will also begin in this year," adds Spohr. Speaking about its future plans, he says, "We will begin work on its second export order for the light metro project in Montreal from early 2019 while production for Mumbai Metro Line 3 will also begin next year." Is the company looking at expanding the facility? Answering this question, he says "Currently the plant produces around 20 cars a month and gradually, we plan to increase it to 24 cars."

Other plants
Besides the Sri City Plant, the company also has facilities in Bengaluru, Karnataka which acts as a rolling stock engineering site, TIS/ADM engineering site, Global shared services for HR and Finance and global IS&T operations centre. Additionally, Alstom has a facility in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu which manufactures rolling stock components. It specialises in designing, manufacturing & testing of traction and electrical components. Besides manufacturing metros, Alstom is also working closely with Indian Railways. The duo has a joint venture that is set up to manufacture 800 units of electric locomotives for freight transport (Prima twin-section WAG12). These locomotives are located manufactured in Madhepura plant in Bihar.

END