GKN Driveline, a leading and long-term supplier of automotive driveline components and systems in India continues to grow at a rapid pace.
In the last twelve months GKN Driveline has broken ground on a new facility in Pune and opened a precision forge at Oragadam near Chennai. The continued expansion enables GKN Driveline to remain close and accessible to its customers in India. With the completion of these new facilities GKN Driveline employment in India will total 1200, an increase of 20 percent.
Currently GKN Driveline employs 1000 people at three CVJ Systems factories in India: Faridabad and Dharuhera, near Delhi in the north; and Oragadam, near Chennai, in the south.
The new 8,000-square-metre facility at Pune will manufacture products from GKN Drivelines CVJ Systems and TransAxles Solutions product portfolio. The INR130 crores (£18 m) factory will employ more than 200 people and is strategically located within 30 kilometres of a number of major GKN Driveline customers, including Fiat, Volkswagen, General Motors, TATA and Renault. When fully operational in September 2012, the plant will have an annual production capacity of 1.2 million CVJ Systems. The new plant is also planned to manufacture differentials from GKN Driveline’s Trans Axle Solutions product range.
In November 2011, GKN Driveline opened a new 48 crores INR (£6.6m) precision forge at Oragadam near Chennai in Tamil Nadu. The 5,000-square-metre facility supplies precision forgings to GKN Driveline’s Oragadam CVJ Systems manufacturing plant, which annually produces 1.2 million sideshafts for automotive manufacturers in South India. The new forging facility currently employs 60 people.
“GKN Driveline has posted an annual growth rate of more than 15 percent over the past five years in India,” said Ravindra Ojha, managing director of GKN Driveline in India. "India clearly is a critically important market for the company.”
"We expect India to remain a high-growth automotive market for many years to come and will continue to invest here to meet our customers need for CVJ systems, trans-axle components and all-wheel-drive products, as well as products for hybrid and electric-drive vehicles.”