[romeomidhun]

Source: http://www.livemint.com/Companies/Yh...mentcycle.html

"Maruti Suzuki India Ltd is working towards reducing the number of vehicular platforms and shorten its product development cycle..."

"Maruti currently sells 16 models on eight platforms."

"The plan is to reduce the number of platforms to three or four, C.V. Raman, executive director, engineering, said in an interview last week."

"As part of a mid-term plan announced on 30 June 2015, Suzuki Motor Co. said the firm will invest in new platforms and consolidate the products into three new lightweight platforms—Mini, A, and B."

The 8 platforms currently used may be:

Alto 800, Alto K10, Omni
Eeco
Wagon R, Stingray
Celerio
Swift, Ritz, DZire, Ertiga
Gypsy
Baleno
Ciaz, Scross

How will they combine them into 3/4 platforms?

IMO, it should be:

i. A small platform for the following cars: Alto 800, Alto K10, Omni (to be replaced with Eeco?), Eeco, Wagon R, Stingray

ii. The current Baleno platform for the following: Celerio, Swift, Ritz (to be discontinued?), DZire, Ertiga, Baleno, upcoming Brezza

iii. A bigger platform for Ciaz, Scross (and the international Vitara?)

iv. The one and only Gypsy in its own ladder-frame platform.

[1100D]

Originally Posted by romeomidhun

The 8 platforms currently used may be:

Alto 800, Alto K10, Omni

The Omni is a separate platform by itself, has no connection with the front drive hatches.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by romeomidhun

The 8 platforms currently used may be:

Alto 800, Alto K10, Omni
Eeco
Wagon R, Stingray
Celerio
Swift, Ritz, DZire, Ertiga
Gypsy
Baleno
Ciaz, Scross

How will they combine them into 3/4 platforms?

As if now they are not sharing enough parts right from a 5L hatch to a 12L crossover

S-Cross and Ciaz does not come under the same platform. Rather the Ciaz is built on an extended swift platform just like the ertiga. Ritz was a different platform IIRC.

[romeomidhun]

Originally Posted by audioholic

As if now they are not sharing enough parts right from a 5L hatch to a 12L crossover

Parts sharing is a small case when compared to platform sharing.

Originally Posted by audioholic

S-Cross and Ciaz does not come under the same platform. Rather the Ciaz is built on an extended swift platform just like the ertiga. Ritz was a different platform IIRC.

Not sure about the current Ciaz. But Ritz is definitely on the Swift platform.

[Graven5]

Gives Maruti another reason to stop assembling the Gypsy, unless the armed forces do stitch another contract.

[romeomidhun]

Originally Posted by Graven5

Gives Maruti another reason to stop assembling the Gypsy, unless the armed forces do stitch another contract.

You need to get an idea of the huge profit they are making from Gypsy. It is priced so high, at around 6L!

Considering an average monthly sales of 500 units and a flat profit of 1L per unit, the total profit amounts to 60 crores per year!

[Graven5]

Originally Posted by romeomidhun

You need to get an idea of the huge profit they are making from Gypsy. It is priced so high, at around 6L!
Considering an average monthly sales of 500 units and a flat profit of 1L per unit, the total profit amounts to 60 crores per year!

I am all for the Gypsy and love to see it go further. And living in pure 4x4 terrain-Coorg, I understand it's prowess or pricing too well.
Considering a total sales of 1.4 million units in 2015, 500 is still a minuscule number. If Maruti wants to feed us sixteen models from just three or four platforms and call it reduced product life cycle, there is a greater unspoken goal. Let's simply call it economies of scale.
The cost advantage of manufacturing a million vehicles from four platforms is far greater than what a single Gypsy frame can achieve.

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by romeomidhun

Not sure about the current Ciaz. But Ritz is definitely on the Swift platform.

Ritz (Splash) is based on the old Swift' platform. And so is the DZire Tour.

The current Swift, Ertiga, DZire, Brezza are all on the same platform.

[RoadSurfer]

Platform sharing should not be confused with parts/components sharing. Also platform sharing doesn't even mean sharing same wheelbase. A single platform can have a compact hatchback, sedan, crossover, etc. on it. The main advantage is that it cuts down development time and cost.
Components can be shared across different platforms and this practice has been there since many decades.

[Viju]

The speed at which MSIL is moving now is impressive (at least compared to how it was, say 10 years ago). I guess Suzuki has realized that without pushing all their newer models to the Indian market, their survival is at stake, as their global market share excluding India has shrunk to dangerous levels.

The current models share platforms in this manner:
(1) Alto800, AltoK10
(2) WagonR, Stingray
(3) Celerio
(4) Ritz, Dzire Tour (old Swift platform)
(5) Swift, Dzire, Ciaz, Ertiga
(6) S-Cross, Brezza (Brezza is a shortened version of the S-Cross platform)
(7) Baleno - I believe this will be the base platform for many of the upcoming MSIL models as this is an all new platform

* Omni, Eeco and Gypsy are all built on different age-old platforms and I expect Omni and Gypsy to go out of production in the next 2 years or so, once crash test norms come into effect. May be finally they will bring the Jimny to India.
* The Ritz should be replaced with the Ignis by end of this year.
* The Swift full model change should launch sometime in 2017 (followed by Dzire and later, Ertiga, and all new Ciaz).

Therefore, overall it does seem like MSIL will be able to consolidate its entire portfolio into 3 or 4 platforms with the next generation:
(1) Mini - Alto, WagonR, Celerio
(2) A - Swift, Dzire, Ertiga, Ciaz, Baleno, Ignis
(3) B - Brezza, S-Cross, new Jimny / Gypsy
(4) Utility vehicles - Eeco, Carry

[Vitalstatistiks]

I wonder what triggered this thought process.

Previously folks used to laud Maruti for providing so many vehicles on the same platform, priced within a few thousand of each other.

Did the (forced?) Brezza pricing, so as to not cannibalize their own (more premium) offering, coupled with lessons learnt from Baleno eating into Swift's sales, trigger this ?

[Viju]

Originally Posted by Vitalstatistiks

I wonder what triggered this thought process.

I think you did not read the content properly. They are only reducing the number of platforms - not reducing the number of products. In fact, to meet their target of 2 million cars per annum sales by 2020, I think MSIL will introduce even more models and variants in the coming years.

Reducing the number of platforms makes sense for any manufacturer, not just MSIL - because it means using more common parts, shortening the development time, and introducing new models faster into the market.

And why would MSIL care if Brezza is eating into Baleno, which is eating into Swift etc? The money goes into the same account at the end of the day, right?