[RavenAvi]

Never one to rest on their laurels, the country's leading car major, Maruti-Suzuki India Limited, has disclosed at a recent investors' call that it has set aside 40% of it's massive (proposed) Rs 4,400-crore capex of this fiscal year towards new product development and strengthening it's Research & Development of platforms, engines and products.

This will help Maruti-Suzuki to build better cars that are not only more fuel efficient, but much more safer and advanced.

( (Maruti Ciaz : Official Review)Source)

A big part of this future development will come from MSIL's upcoming R&D and testing facility at Rohtak, Haryana, which is being developed at a cost of Rs 2,000 crores. This new R&D facility is expected to be up and running within the next 2 years and will include a world-class test track for the company to test their upcoming cars under all possible conditions.

Parent company Suzuki has already announced it's commitment of developing 20 all-new car models by 2020, out of which 15 car models are expected to be launched in India. All this is over and above the facelifted, refreshed, and upgraded versions of their existing fleet of cars.

In a recent investors call, the company said some of the projects have got deferred to next year. So, the company has proposed a budget of Rs 4,400 crore and 40% of that will be deployed towards new product and development. Capex in 2015-16 was Rs 2400 crore.

CV Raman, Executive Director, Engineering, MSIL said the Rohtak centre will help the company to scale up. In addition, MSIL will continue to support SMC on development of global models. The facility will be ready in the next two years. He added the R&D centre in India has evolved into end-to-end development. MSIL and Suzuki Motor (SMC) complement each other’s capability in R&D.

With Rohtak in, place the company will be able to fast track model development, testing and validation, bring refreshments at a much faster pace. The company is investing around Rs 2,000 crore in the project and it is expected to be completed in two years. It will also bring in capability of validation and it will enable the company to meet the market requirement in a better way, said the company. Platforms and engines are being developed by Suzuki and Maruti Suzuki will build on India specific design and testing, he added.

Raman said, over the years, R&D in India has progressed well from just backend support to becoming the centre of excellence and now playing a major role in product development. The days are not far where the product itself can be developed by the centres in India.

Business Standard (with inputs from Rush Lane)


RELATED READS :-

Maruti aiming for double-digit sales growth every year till 2020 (Maruti aiming for double digit sales growth every year till 2020!)

Maruti to become bigger than Suzuki's global operations

Maruti puts together database of 1.7 crore government employees for sales targeting!