Continental expands capabilities in India

Continental Automotive has announced the expansion of its manufacturing and validation competence in India. Continental, under its Powertrain division sets up the new test & validation lab for fuel supply systems at its Bangalore development centre, while two product lines for fuel rail assembly and in-tank fuel pumps are being inaugurated at the Pune facility. The lab and the two new product lines are intended to attain Continental’s proposed goal of achieving the highest degree of localisation across the value chain and also to satisfy the increased demand from customers. The new lines added at the Pune plant will have the capacity of producing 1 million additional units of fuel rail injectors and fuel pumps of different range. The test & validation lab for fuel supply systems ensures local testing infrastructure and competence. With the globally standardised testing & validation process at Continental, the results at the India centre can be shared and compared with other global locations, hence the OEMs will benefit from Continental’s global expertise. According to Joerg Laatsch, Head of Business Unit Engines Systems India, “The localisation of the fuel rail assembly is a further milestone in coming closer to complete localised gasoline engine management systems and support our strategy to serve our customers directly here in India”. Dr. Markus Distelhoff, Executive Vice President, Business Unit, Fuel Supply at Continental AG added, “We are witnessing a huge traction for our powertrain systems and technologies in India and we have been working on the Indian-isation of these solutions tailor made for Indian OEMs over the past few years. The current investments will definitely help us in meeting the increased customer demand and also to leverage our global expertise in the powertrain domain for Indian OEMs”. Claude d’Gama Rose, Managing Director of Continental India noted, “We have yet again proved our commitment to the India market. We have had series of investments and corporate announcements in 2011 including the acquisition of Modi Tyres, buying back remaining shares at a JV with Rico Auto, the entry of Benecke-Kaliko (a part of the ContiTech division) into the Indian market, Phase III expansion of our Technical Center India, etc. With the backing of these investments, we are quite confident of reaching the projected growth in India”. Continental is banking on its localisation strategy and believes it is the key to its growth and success in the developing markets. With a high degree of localization of the value-added chain, Continental is capable of offering high-end technology with global standards customized for the Indian market and more importantly at an affordable cost. Continental collaborates its technical expertise and global exposure with the know-how of its Indian engineers and specialists. Earlier in 2011 Continental announced its strategy to double growth in India and made significant investments across its divisions and business units to spur growth.