Meritor HVS India & Automotive Axles Ltd., a joint venture of Meritor Inc. of the US and the Kalyani Group, is ready to take on the challenge of next level growth. Known for its drivetrain and braking system for highway, off highways and military applications, the group has manufacturing facilities in Mysore, Jamshedpur and Pantnagar and an aftermarket warehouse in Pune. With over 100 retail outlets across the country, Meritor is also expanding into Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. It has engineering centers in Bengaluru and Mysore.
Mission 2019
“This growth strategy comprises three goals: First, grow our business further by increasing our product offering to market; second, reduce cost and streamline operations; and third to improve reliability and quality of our products,” shares Mr. N.P. Thimmaiah, Managing Director and CEO, Meritor India.
‘Rise to the next level’ by 2018 is being driven by ‘developing at least 2-3 products every year’.
India is one bright spots in Meritor’s global portfolio. He shares: “We have launched several new products in the LCV & ICV segment called 10X, 11X and 13X, and for heavy duty applications like in deep mining we have introduced P600 series hub reduction. Two new brakes – 325 and 360mm diameter – have been brought out too, besides 410G brake”.
As a market leader in axles, Meritor is the second most popular in brakes. Mr. Thimmaiah feels only horizontal growth can improve its revenues and market presence significantly.
Expansion into the Defence and off-highway segment with products like all-wheel drive axle backhoe loaders, wheel loaders and compactors is already underway. “We want to get into suspensions as a business vertical and high end components like gears using our core technology and strength,” he elaborates.
Meritor continues to invest into its testing and validation capabilities. He explains: “When we produce new products, we also want to develop end-to-end capability to validate products here. Sending to the US or Europe takes time and has logistics challenges, and that is why we are building a new R&D and testing facility to expand our current validation capability in India.”
Reaching out
Meritor is working on rationalizing its supplier base from 240 to about 130. Mr. Thimmaiah says: “We continue to work on our direct material cost. We are asking our existing suppliers to set up facilities in Mysore to reduce the overhauling time and cost.”
Quicker turnaround & agile operations is something that Meritor India wishes to strengthen, especially with BS VI coming up soon as a norm.
Mr. Thimmaiah further observes: “Today everyone has excess capacity which means OEMs are also fighting for the available pie. Product differentiation is the key, and hence we are spending lots of our effort & resources to bring new products for the future and also enhance the product quality and reliability to meet the end-customer’s requirements. We are working on several innovative products to reduce weight and enhance efficiency to align with the next-gen BS VI platforms”.
Having recorded 35 per cent growth last year, Meritor hopes to repeat the performance this year too.
It’s advantage Meritor all the way!
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