Hella India Lighting wins CII Innovation Award 2017

Hella India Lighting has won the CII Industrial Innovation Award 2017, having been recognised as the ‘Most Innovative Enterprise in India in the Midsize Manufacturing Companies’ category.

After months of rigorous evaluation process, site audit and grand jury interaction, Hella India Lighting was among the top 26 shortlisted innovative organisations from over 200 large, medium and small industries in the country.

The CII Industrial Innovation Awards, instituted by CII in 2014 to recognise and celebrate visionary enterprises across industry segments, seek to recognise and honour Indian industry's brightest stars and to identify the top innovative organisations.

The awards ceremony, held in Delhi on October 24, was attended by Dr C Muralikrishna Kumar, senior adviser, NITI Aayog; Dr Naushad Forbes, past president, Confederation of Indian Industry, co-chairman, Forbes Marshall; Rajan Navani, chairman, CII Council on Future Businesses, 2017-18 and MD, Jetline Group; Kris Gopalakrishnan, chairman, CII Start-up Council, chairman, Axilor Ventures and co-founder, Infosys; and Dr Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, co-editor, Global Innovation Index and senior economist, WIPO.

Speaking about the award, Rama Shankar Pandey, managing director, Hella India Lighting, said, “This coveted award not only underlines Hella’s excellence in pioneering lighting solutions in the country but also in raising the standards of safety, reliability and styling for the industry. This recognition will further motivate the company to strengthen its commitment towards its vision of bringing ‘Technology of Tomorrow for the Life of Today’ to Indian roads."

"Millions of Indians drive every day to their work and more than 400 never return to their homes and families. India needs to arrest this alarming level of road accidents and we as responsible Industry players have dedicated our development and production resources towards this mission. The award shall also go a long way in strengthening the confidence of our OEM partners and suppliers,” added Rama Shankar Pandey.

Innovating for the Indian market
As part of the judging process, Hella India Lighting showcased its companywide innovation framework and presented some innovative products developed for the Indian automotive segment. These include:

- The first-of-its-kind, LED-based ‘Fit & Forget’ maintenance-free stop lamps and tail-lamps. The fully sealed, water- and dust-proof, vibration-resistant product improves battery life, fuel efficiency and needs thinner wiring across the vehicle with 80 percent less power consumption.

- Modular projector headlamps in a unique semi-customised approach that help achieve excellent cost innovation for low-volume, high-variety Indian OEMs in select market segments, to bring state-of-the-art technology at an affordable cost. One example of cost saving is less tooling investment and quick development time, as core design remains the same yet differentiation is achieved via flexible styling.