The plant has also installed a new system of cleaning skids at its robotic paint shop. "With this new automated system, we are saving water and energy for cleaning the skids to a great extent as compared to the traditional method of manual cleaning." There is a huge focus on waste reduction at the plant as part of the ‘Think Blue. Factory.' Initiative*.

Lauenroth explains: "In the last two years, our teams have worked vigorously towards achieving the set goals and they will continue to strengthen our commitment towards environment. I am proud that we were able to cut down on the waste generation in excess of 20 percent this year. I am sure that our water saving actions of over 17 percent are extremely important given the fact that there is a lot of scarcity of water in the neighbouring areas. We have various projects under investigation and we will go on implementing them once we have evaluated the savings from each one of them. There will be no compromise in our commitment towards environment."

Lauenroth recognises the importance managing costs in a highly competitive market. "We came to India to produce and sell quality cars that are affordable. And by affordable we do not mean cheap cars. So while we are focussed on localisation on content, we are nowhere compromising on quality. We have a well structured RFQ that defines what we require from our supplier.

The RFQ is double checked by our quality department. We know that tomorrow if something goes wrong in terms of quality, the customer will not ask about the suppliers. The customer will ask for Volkswagen. And we can never let that happen," he says adding that his biggest nightmare is recall of products. Currently, the Chakan plant uses up to 72 percent of local content and it is looking to gradually increase the same. "We will soon have an engine plant so our local content will be increasingly accordingly.
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