REVOLUTIONIZING THE AUTO INDUSTRY

An International Conference on ‘Revolutionizing the Auto Industry’ was organized by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) on 16th July, 2014 at Hotel Leela Ambience, Gurgaon. The conference was attended by over 200 delegates from across the country. Three faculty from Department of Mechanical Engineering (Mr. T Bothichandar, Mr. Brijesh Verma and Mr. C. Ganesh) along with 8 students (Gopal Gupta, Vikas Kumar, Dipankar Mondal, Devendra Kumar Yadav, Manish Kumar, Satyam Saraswat, Samir Ansari and  Sumeet Kumar – ME Branch) attended the conference from Dronacharya Group of Institutions, Greater India. The aim of conference was to revolutionalize the idea of highly developed, intelligent technologies for mobility and also to provide best highly reliable solutions to customer by Auto Industry.

The inaugural session commenced with address by Mr. Rattan Kapur, Chairman, CII Haryana State Council and MD, Mark Exhaust Systems Ltd. with a remarks that, “Sustainable Innovative practices are extremely important for industries in the challenging times”. He added that CII works to create and sustain an environment conducive to the development of India, partnering industry, Government and civil society through advisory and consultative processes. The CII theme of ‘Accelerating Growth and Creating Employment’ for 2014-15 aims to strengthen a growth process that meets the aspirations of today’s India. During current year CII will specially focus on economic growth, education, skill development, manufacturing and entrepreneurship as growth enablers.

Mr. Rajiv Bajaj, Principal, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants made a presentation on “Mobility 2025 and beyond: Technology and Business Model Innovation”. The presentation included his view on “Global light vehicle, ABC technology (A -Future of mobility will change, B-Technology and business model innovation, C- The new ecosystem) and how connectivity is a prerequisite for multi-modal mobility”.

Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, Executive Director, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. mentioned that customer is keenly focusing on safety features, fuel economy, and cost invested. He suggested that adopting flexible manufacturing process is a best solution for being pioneer in the auto industry.

Mr. Sunil Kant Munjal, Ex President, CII & Jt. Managing Director, Hero Moto Corp Ltd. made an address on economic act of industrial growth and how the value changes with automation of automobile industry.

The Guest of Honor Mr. Ajay Shankar, Member Secretary, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, Government of India, stated that “Auto sector has greater percentage impact on national GDP. Gas based trucks and buses need to be introduced soon.”

The first session started with address by Dr. Naveen Gautam, MD, Hella Automotive India Ltd. He explained the Challenges in perception of sustainability and focused on three necessary condition of sustainability i.e. effective utilization of renewable resources, pollution & waste and Non-renewable resources.

This work is an attempt of designing a vehicle for handicapped with Optimization in Design and has been accomplished after studying merits and demerits of various available designs of similar vehicles in India and abroad. The main objective was to provide independence, convenience and safety to the handicapped. The peculiar feature of the design is that, the wheel chair which is in routine use of the handicapped will itself mount on the vehicle without outside help as driver’s seat and dismount similarly. In addition to other design features of convenience to the handicapped, the vehicle has also been provided with redundancy in operation of controls with hands as well feet, at instant choice of the rider for better safety.

Mr. Vijay Sethi, Vice President & CIO, Hero Moto Corp Ltd. shared his perspective needed for bringing wide change in Automobile industry. From his valuable experience he suggested seven valuable technologies necessary for auto industry.

Mr. Vinod Pandey, GM, BMW India gave his approach on Sustainable mobility. He shared the details on how BMW is consistently searching for efficiency potentials and how BMW handle drastic change in technology.

Mr. Raj Sarkar, VP- Marketing, Ford India emphasized on how Ford is contributing on research to automate the vehicle much more with LiDAR sensors. He ended his presentation with a quotation, “Ford is opening the highways to all mankind”.

During the second session Mr. Nishant Arya , Executive Director, JBM Group summarized his view on how new materials reduce the utilization of material, how electronics changes the era of vehicles and gave some mechatronics applications.

Mr. Saurabh Mohan Saxena, CEO, ZF Hero Chassis Systems Pvt. Ltd. showed a film on ‘The world in 2020’. He discussed about Chassis technology that is used for light and heavy vehicles. He summed up his discussion by sharing the latest developments in his company i.e. Composite Leaf Spring (CLA) and Electric Twist Beam (eTB).

Mr. Dilip Sawhney, CEO, Rockwell Automation India Ltd. explained his view on role of automation in safe and sustainable manufacturing. He also discussed Automotive manufacturing needs, financial reason for sustainability to be followed and sustainable production solutions.

Last session commenced with a presentation by Mr. Raj Singh, MD, Kuka Robotics on low cost solution in automation. He elaborated on the concepts like trends in robotics, energetic states of a robot system, light weight robot design, key robotic applications and future robotic application i.e. Jig less body shop.

Mr. Reiner Allgeier, MD, Schenker India Pvt. Ltd. explained how his company is supporting Automotive industry by its supply chain. He further continued on how efficient and flexible Supply Chain Solutions can be offered to automotive industry.

The session came to an end with address by Ms. Sudakshina Ghosh, SAP India who shared her views on enabling the supply chain planning and execution of business excellence with more innovations.

Achievements and actions of industrial leaders present in the conference was an inspiration to have ambitious inspired us to have ambitious goals with proper implementation plan to strive and achieve best in chosen fields.