On January 10, 2024, Tata Passenger Electric Mobility began production of passenger vehicles from its new plant in the GIDC hub of Sanand, Gujarat. The start of production came exactly a year after Tata Motors completed the acquisition of the former Ford India plant, making the facility the home-grown automaker’s second plant in Gujarat to manufacture ICE and electric vehicles.

What is creditable is that Tata Motors achieved the retooling of the 300,000-units-per-annum plant in just 12 months after the plant’s acquisition. The manufacturing capacity at the refurbished, state-of-the-art  Sanand plant is scalable to 420,000 units per annum.

Global product engineering and digital services provider Tata Technologies, a Tata Group company, had a key role to play in that speedy refurbishing of the manufacturing facility through deployment of a smart manufacturing solution that fully integrates ERP, PLM, MES and IoT systems. 

In a recent industry conference call, Tata Technologies' CEO and MD Warren Harris said: “We were responsible for architecting and deploying a solution that fully integrates ERP, PLM, MES and IoT systems that has enabled Tata Motors to increase its annual production capacity by 300,000 units. This agile deployment was achieved in an industry-leading timeline, allowing Tata Motors to commence production (on January 10, 2024).”

Spread across 460 acres, Tata Motors’ new Sanand plant houses four main shops – stamping, body construction, paint and final assembly shop – which are equipped with a high level of automation and latest technology to ensure precision manufacturing. 

The speedy commissioning of the new Sanand plant unlocks additional manufacturing capacity for Tata Motors’ passenger vehicle division, which has witnessed robust demand over the past two years for both its IC engine and electric vehicles and was nearing maximum capacity utilisation at its existing plants.

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