Adient to open India’s largest automotive seating prototyping and testing facility, invests $30m

Ireland-based automotive seating solutions company Adient has announced that it has invested $30 million (Rs 189 crore) in its new automotive seating prototyping and testing facility in Pune. The company says  the new facility is the largest of its kind ever to be built in India.

For Adient, which designs, manufactures and markets a range of seating systems and components for passenger cars, commercial vehicles, light trucks, vans, pick-up trucks and SUVs, the construction of its new facility marks a major expansion of its existing technical centre in Pune. The existing facility is already a world-class unit with the largest workforce in Adient's global network of tech centres.

The new facility, slated to open in late 2018, will provide physical testing to augment the capabilities of the existing technical centre in Pune, a global Centre of Competence at Adient for computer-aided engineering (CAE), computer-aided design (CAD) automation and finite element analysis (FEA) simulation expertise.

The Pune Centre is its first India Tech Centre and was established in 2000, it today boasts of a having approximately 1,000 engineers, which consists of roughly 850 engineers based locally in Pune and a further 150 engineers stationed at its other locations outside India on global assignments.

Adient’s new facility will be situated on a 20,000 square metre site near its existing tech centre, the new prototyping and testing facility will facilitate full-scale prototyping, testing, and trim capabilities, enabling it to conduct full product verification in India for global customers and meeting regulatory standards.

The facility will house a fully hydraulic acceleration sled test system, offering precision pulse matching, full payload capability, and high-speed video capture from onboard cameras. A 6-axis shaker table at the facility, complete with semi-anechoic chamber, will enable NHV (noise, vibration and harshness) analysis and road durability testing.

Dr. Detlef Juerss: "With this new facility, we will be able to fully execute product development including design and product validation for global and local launch programs right here in Pune."

“As well as underscoring our long-term commitment to India, this investment of more than $30 million (Rs 189 crore) is an important milestone for Adient as we optimise our engineering footprint around the world to deliver global standard product development and innovation capabilities wherever our customers are,” said Dr. Detlef Juerss, VP, Engineering and chief technical officer, Adient.

“With this new facility, we will be able to fully execute product development including design and product validation for global and local launch programs right here in Pune, all backed by cutting-edge infrastructure that will be truly unrivalled in India’s automotive industry,” added Dr Juerss.

Richard Chung, VP, Innovation, Adient said, “Adient has for many years benefited from its strong focus on design in India, a dynamic environment that is rich in talent and creative inspiration. Our India Tech Centre team already plays a vital role in Adient’s global industrial design operations, providing designs to support our customers today and imagining concepts that will shape the experience of mobility in the future. I am very excited about the potential we can unleash in Pune as we accelerate our design and innovation processes here.”

Murali Rajagopalan, director and country manager, Adient India, said: “Adient was one of the first global automotive Tier I suppliers to enter India. Over the past two decades since then, we have built world-class manufacturing and product development capabilities across the country. We work closely with our customers, who recognise that success in India depends on developing India-specific products. India is phasing in new safety regulations for which development activities need to begin now. As far as Adient is concerned, the timing could not be better. When this new facility opens we will be able to support our customers on an entirely new level.”

Adient (then a division of Johnson Controls) first established its operations in India in 1995 through the formation of Tata Johnson Controls, a collaboration with Tata Automotive Components.  It recently celebrated the first anniversary of its spin-off as an independent automotive supplier and today has more than 2,500 employees at its wholly owned subsidiary Adient India.

The company has recently received a Best Supplier Award for Quality from Tata Motors, adding to a long list of supplier awards it received in 2017, which include the Toyota Regional Contribution Award, the Honda Supplier Development Award, the Nissan Supplier Quality Award (for the fourth consecutive year), and the Nissan Global Innovation Award.