Maruti to roll out India car in FY11

Maruti Suzuki India, the country?s largest passenger carmaker, will unveil its first `Made in India? compact car in 2010-11. A battery of engineers and technocrats at the company?s R&D centre in Gurgaon are working round the clock on the design and associated specifics of this fully-indigenised passenger car from the Maruti stable.The company is in the process of hiring 1,000 engineers more to hasten the design process of this new vehicle. ?We will launch the compact car by 2010-11, which will be fully made in India. Engineers at the R&D centre are working nights. We are also coordinating with key vendors,? Maruti?s managing executive officer (production) MM Singh told ET.While Maruti Suzuki is working overtime to launch its new compact car, it has gone for a 5% across-the-board cut in production costs for all its cars
to tide over the economic meltdown and maintain the 2.5% growth it witnessed in the first half of FY09.

At present, the company?s Gurgaon works can manufacture 7 lakh cars while the Manesar plant rolls out another 2.4 lakh cars every year. Along with this initiative, the company is also partnering with vendors to bring down supplier costs significantly.Mr Singh said, ?We have taken a special drive to cut the production cost of our cars. We are constantly reviewing production to bring down wastage. We are also trying to look into the systems of our suppliers so that their costs come down too. Incidentally, we source 80% of components used in our cars from different vendors while the remaining 20% comes from Maruti?s stable. Logistics is another area where we are trying to prune costs. With all these initiatives, we hope to maintain a growth of 2.5% in the next six months as well.?

The company, which is ramping up annual capacity at its Manesar plant to 3 lakh units by January 2009, has set a sales target of 1 million cars in the domestic market and a 2 lakh export target by 2010-11. The company?s Gurgaon plant manufactures some 7 lakh cars.Mr Singh informed that the new Maruti A-Star, which has been launched recently, will be exported to European markets. ?Our initial plan is to sell 50,000 A-Star cars in the domestic market and 1 lakh cars in the European market,? he said. Mr Singh added that work at the pre-delivery inspection (PDI) centre and a stockyard at Mundra port has been expedited.

Incidentally, Maruti Suzuki and Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone (MPSEZL) has inked an agreement for setting up a mega car terminal. Initial investment in the project is pegged at roughly Rs 100 crore. Of this, MPSEZL will invest Rs 60 crore in setting up infrastructure at the port. Maruti will invest Rs 40 crore to set up a PDI centre.

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Source: ET

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