‘We have developed a lot of high-tensile parts tooling.’

D K Sharma, executive VP and business head, tooling division, Godrej Tooling, on Budget expectations, new materials and industry mega trends. An email interview by Amit Panday.

What is your forecast about growth in the automotive manufacturing sector for the next five years?
The automotive sector has been setting the bar higher for itself and has developed hubs or automotive belts across the country, which has generated jobs. The quality of exports is also high and worthy of international recognition.
The auto industry has made huge investments in the past five years and evidently has a lot of expectations from the new government. I believe that the industry expects to see a CAGR of 10-15 percent over the next five years.

What are your expectations from the upcoming Budget? What do you think should be the focus areas to ensure growth and development?
The key issue of excise duty on automobiles needs to be addressed. The reduced excise duties on vehicles must continue which is very vital for the revival of the auto sector. The government must provide more export incentives, free interstate movement of vehicles, promote electric and hybrid vehicles, prevent overloading, ensure better road safety, emission and fuel efficiency norms and have a policy on fleet modernisation and scrapping.

There is a lot of focus on lightweight vehicles and downsizing of components in many areas. How do these trends impact the auto business at Godrej Tooling?
The requirements of Indian car design have been changing and we are constantly updated with the technology. With the concept of reducing weight of cars, currently a lot of new materials (plastics and polymer combinations) are being used to replace the conventional counterparts. This is going to be a megatrend in the future.
Our team has ample experience along with having a talented and young workforce, a combination which is essential for such challenges and to adapt to new ideas.
As an example, we have already developed a lot of high tensile parts tooling. We have invested in the latest FEA softwares like Hyperform and Autoform for feasibility analysis and springback compensation. These technologies enable
our engineers to holistically deliver the solutions to our customers. The demands are changing with new requirements and hence we always aim to keep our expertise a step ahead to meet their requirements.

How do you deal with cost pressures when it comes to designing and developing tools and dies for the manufacturing setups of OEMs?
External factors of the market have been volatile from rising supply cost to cost reduction demands of customers. While design optimisation and input selection are not compromised on performance parameters, the key lies in eliminating any wasteful work which is done on dies by employing the right resources for every process.
We are also looking at our strategy of providing value-added services and tooling solutions as an order-winning criteria.

Who are your top five customers in the automotive industry?
We have been constantly working with Maruti Suzuki India, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, Daimler India, Yamaha Motor India and Hero MotoCorp.