The new paint shop was inaugurated in November 2012. "This paint shop offers superior paint finish and delivers quality much superior to what we see in contemporary trucks in India. The top coat paint finish will be superior in terms of gloss, distinctness of image and corrosion resistance," says Aggarwal. Even UV protection will be two times more than the existing paint quality. The paint shop will have an initial capacity of 72,000 units scalable to 100,000 units per annum.
The plant has a new BIW line operated by robots. The lines have been re-laid to increase the efficiencies and capacities. "Various in-line process checks have been implemented to ensure that no product moves ahead unless it is absolutely right. So the culture of ‘first time right' has been implemented. Aggarwal also points out that the shopfloor uses a good blend of automation and manual operations to derive maximum operational efficiency and product quality.
"We have fungible capacity, so we can produce any model on the line. While the current capacity is at 5,000 per month, we can jack it up to more than 7,500 per month very quickly depending on the market demand. In fact, we are at a take-off stage now. When the market starts growing, we would be in an advantages position to improve our position," he says.
Besides its technological proficiency, the Volvo Group also brings process expertise to the table in this JV. "I call it soft technology. Moreover, we also bring know-how in terms of developing new products and validation in terms of quality." Divry says. He also draws attention to the fact that the Volvo Group has stationed a team of Japanese quality experts at the Pithampur plant. "Coming from various Volvo Group plants around the world, this highly experienced team has been working very closely with the local team for the last five years. Our local team has been very enthusiastically learning from the Japanese team and has now adopted a lot of quality norms to suit the local requirements in terms of manufacturing quality and efficiency."
