"How is it made?" The most natural question that springs to everyone's mind after coming across a beautiful piece of engineering. Take Honda's cars, for example. We visit their manufacturing plant in Greater Noida for a dekko at close quarters.
Honda Siel Cars India Limited (HSCI) was incorporated in December 1995 as a joint venture between Honda Motor Company Limited of Japan and Siel Limited with a commitment to provide Honda's latest passenger car models and technologies to Indian customers. The investment made by the company in India to date is Rs 1,620 crore for the Greater Noida (Uttar Pradesh) plant and Rs 784 crore for the Tapukara (Rajasthan) plant.
HSCI's first state-of-the-art manufacturing unit was set up in Greater Noida in 1997. This green-field project is spread over 150 acres of land (over 6,00,000 square metres) and has an annual capacity of 1,00,000 units. The Tapukara plant encompasses over 600 acres of land and will have an initial production capacity of 60,000 units per annum at an investment of about Rs 1,000 crore. As reported in CAR India earlier, the first phase of this facility was inaugurated in September 2008.
The company's range of products includes the Honda Jazz, Honda City, Honda Civic and Honda Accord, which are manufactured at the Greater Noida facility with indigenisation levels of 77 per cent, 76 per cent, 74 per cent and 28 per cent respectively. The CR-V, on the other hand, is imported from Japan as a completely built unit (CBU). Honda's models are associated with advanced design and technology, apart from proven qualities such as durability, reliability and fuel-efficiency.
Honda Siel's Greater Noida plant allows the manufacture of various models. However, here we shall concentrate exclusively on the Jazz. Although the installed capacity is for 1,00,000 units, it has the potential to go up to 1,25,000 after taking care of a few bottlenecks. The number this year will be about 70,000 units.
The whole manufacturing process for the Jazz starts from welding. The press is located in Tapukara and backward integration of the parts (such as the powertrain) is also done there.
The Jazz boasts of localisation to the extent of 80 per cent. This has become possible owing to extensive indigenisation of both in-house and outsourced parts and components, the latter being taken care of by the company's purchase department.
One good thing about the Jazz is that, except for the battery wherein lead has to be used due to some technological issues, all its components are lead-free. Although Indian law does not stipulate that all the components should be free from such hazardous elements, it is in keeping with Honda's philosophy and, as such, all the suppliers also have to sign an undertaking that their components do not contain such hazardous elements.
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