Bosch India says it's ready to meet increasing safety demands
The Government of India is becoming serious about improving road safety and has been taking various measures to reduce road related fatalities. The new regulations have made it mandatory for all new two-wheelers to come equipped with CBS or ABS by April 2017. This implies that apart from manufacturers, suppliers will need to scale up to meet the increased demand for safety related software and hardware.
In an official press release, Bosch India has said that "it is prepared to meet increased demand for ABS". The company says that in 2016, sales of ABS-equipped vehicles rose significantly in India. Bosch has attributed the rise in sales to factors like legislation mandates and improved customer awareness. Understandably, this has led to a strong demand. Bosch says that India currently has an ABS fitment rate of around 50 per cent.
"Over the past nine years, Bosch has invested over Rs 400 crore in Bosch Chassis Systems India Pvt. Ltd. and we are committed to growing this system," said Soumitra Bhattacharya, managing director of Bosch Limited and president of Bosch Group India.
Bosch says that its Chakan plant is a member of the International Production Network (IPN) for ABS and ESP. Each machine on the ABS line is connected with one another and also with all other ABS lines in the IPN. The lines are managed by a Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) which allows for quick reactions to any deviation in the manufacturing process. It even allows for online benchmarking with the other manufacturing facilities globally. Owing to this, the Chakan plant has not only achieved a quality level close to zero defects but is also a global benchmark in IPN in some aspects.
Given the significance of the Chakan plant and Pune's gaining prominence as an auto hub, Winfried Kretschmann, minister and president of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and his delegation visited the plant. The Chakan plant is spread over seven hectares of land and commenced operations in 1997.
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