Lumax to build two new plants

Lumax Industries is enhancing its design and development capability as well as its manufacturing expertise in the area of LED lighting, projector lamps and adaptive front lighting (AFS) systems. In line with this strategy, it has established an in-house research and development structure at Gurgaon and Pune to cater to its northern and western region customers respectively. The R&D centres will facilitate collation and co-designing as part of the early development programme for customers. This is part of a strategy to strike a balance between cost parameters and aesthetics.

Lumax is also developing projector lamps as part of the front lighting for the four-wheeler market and also mulling a similar solution for the two-wheeler platform. “Projector lamps will utilise a new technology for the Indian market wherein light is projected through a reflector and a glass prism, thus providing a more concentrated focus with a higher styling intent. We are working on adaptive front lighting systems and when the customer is ready we will launch them in the Indian market,” Deepak Jain, senior executive director, told Autocar Professional.

Projector lamps have been developed by Lumax in cooperation with a four-wheeler OE and Jain says they will be seen on Indian roads in the next quarter of the current fiscal. The in-house adaptive front lighting systems pilot project has not been discussed with any OEM but talks are underway for light emitting diodes (LED) in tail-lamps for the four-wheeler segment.

Jain says that technology trends are clearly inclined towards LEDs in rear lamps and interior lights while front and exterior lighting including headlamps or fog lamps are primarily tilted towards projector lighting. “High intensity discharge lighting has still not come to India due to its cost effectiveness but if a customer requires it, Lumax is ready to provide such a solution through our partner, Stanley Electric Corporation of Japan,” he elaborates.

One of the R&D centres at Lumax is undertaking the core designing and development of products with existing customers and the other is initiating a pilot project with Stanley. Lumax has had a relationship with Stanley for over 26 years and has now established a financial partnership with it as well. Lumax Industries is a listed company with Stanley holding a 37 percent stake, the Jain family the company’s promoters also holding a 37 percent stake, and the rest held by the public. “We hold a market share of 50 percent in India and are present at eight locations in lighting with our top five customers being Maruti Suzuki, Honda as a group, Mahindra, Bajaj and Tata Motors,” remarks Jain. Meanwhile, as part of its expansion plan, Lumax is establishing two greenfield manufacturing facilities over the next two years at Bangalore and Gujarat. A third one is planned at Bawal in Haryana with the plants to meet the requirements of Maruti, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra.

Capacity expansion - Involving an investment of Rs 200 crore, part funded through debt and internal accruals, Rs 150 crore has been earmarked for manufacturing and Rs 50 crore for R&D. This expansion will generate additional lighting capacity for three million vehicles per annum over two phases. The company’s current production capacity is pegged at servicing the requirements of four million vehicles. With this expansion, Lumax is targeting a top-line of Rs 1,000 crore in the current fiscal, a growth of 25 percent over the last financial year.Lumax currently exports two to three percent of its production based on customer requirements.

It is providing lighting for Nissan in the UK, with supplies of centre-high mount stop lamps (CHMSL) to Jaguar Land Rover in the UK slated to commence by the year end. The CHMSL is a central brake lamp, mounted higher than the vehicle’s left and right brake lamps, and offers a warning to following drivers whose view of the vehicle’s left and right stop lamps is blocked by interceding vehicles. Lumax is also a supplier to John Deere in USA and to Case New Holland tractors overseas.

Jain says that lighting as a product category has become very performance oriented with the focus revolving around aesthetics and styling compared to the earlier lighting systems that concentrated only on performance. This necessitated an early engagement with the OEMs right from the development stage of the vehicle. Lumax has a presence in both interior and exterior lighting systems including headlamps, tail-lamps and top lamps. According to Jain,lighting models morph every five years but lighting products per se have undergone a change from sheet metal glass to plastics and are now shifting to plastics plus electronics. Hi-tech electronics technologies are involved in LEDs, projector systems, in integrating lighting with vehicle body systems and in bringing sensors to it with minor changes undertaken every two years with vehicle facelifts.

Hence, the need for Lumax to build the capability of integrating electronics into the lighting system through acquisition of printed circuit board capability and the ability to manufacture and integrate LED products into the lighting space. “A key challenge of very high aesthetic products remains the surface treatment in lighting processes that is becoming more stringent,” feels Jain. Lumax sources futuristic technologies from Stanley and collates OE requirements through technology shows at customer premises. Thereafter, it co-develops products with customers for the Indian market with localised R&D for creating optimum value for the OE.

According to feedback Lumax has received, Indian OEs are looking at much more stylised rear lighting obviously LEDs, which are not limited only to the outside but involve internal styling as well. LEDs reduce the brake-to-lighting ratio when applying brakes and hence are more visible and safer. OEs are also keen to introduce projector lamps in front lighting as well as partial LEDs with a new kind of daylight running light included as a system into the front lamp.

Jain says Lumax has worked on the DRL technology with a customer and is planning to launch it in a vehicle with a LED framework. The customer is believed to be Force Motors for whom Lumax has developed both DRL and projector lamps for the new Force One SUV. In fact, Lumax Industries initiated LED processes in tail-lamps about seven years ago for two-wheelers. “We were the first to bring in a two-shot two-colour injection moulding technique that is used in more styling for rear lighting,” says Jain. LEDs in front lamps have existed for some time in developed economies but are absent in India. Jain says they will become popular in the future as the current LED cost structure in front lamps is not robust enough to offer a solution. LEDs are also eco-friendly as they do not use tungsten and therefore, lead to a much better carbon footprint compared to halogen bulbs. They also reduce voltage and energy consumption while maintaining the same luminosity. But on anti-glare lighting solutions, Jain maintains that regulations are not in place for it. Moreover, it not only involves the issue of lighting systems but also a driving sensibility. “If you drive on full beam, there will be more glare,” he signs off.