GKN Driveline new precision forging facility

GKN Driveline opened a new precision forging facility at Oragadam near Chennai in Tamil Nadu. Located 50 kilometres from Chennai, the British giant has invested nearly Rs. 48 crore (£6.6m UK) in the 5,000-square-metre facility will supply precision forgings to the company’s Oragadam CVJ Systems manufacturing plant. The new plant will initially employ 60 people. It may be recalled that the CVJ Systems plant, which annually produces 1.2 million sideshafts for automotive manufacturers in South India, was opened in 2008 to meet the rapidly growing automotive market in India. “This state-of-the-art forging facility is our first wholly-owned forging facility in the Asia Pacific region and reinforces our commitment to our India-based customers,” said Marc Vuarchex, managing director, GKN Driveline Asia Pacific. “Since the early 1980s, we have viewed India as an extremely important market for us. We now employ over 800 people in the country.” Ravindra Ojha, managing director of GKN Driveline in India noted, “Our business in India continues to grow at an annual rate of 15 pc, and this investment helps ensure that we will continue to meet our customers growth throughout the region.” GKN Driveline has an application engineering centre in Faridabad, a city in the south-east of Haryana state in northern India and manufacturing facilities since the 1980s, with production units at Fairdabad and Dharuhera, in Haryana State in north India and Oragadam near Chennai in the south.