Forms and Gears gets into auto components

Forms & Gears, Asia's leading fixture manufacturer supplying machining centre fixtures worldwide to the world's leading machine tool and automobile manufacturers, has forayed into auto component manufacture. A separate division has been spun off equipped with CNC machining centres and CMMs to cater to this requirement, headed by former executive director of Simpson & Co Mr N. Ramani. The Chennai-based company has also announced that it has garnered an order from Ashok Leyland for fixtures and machining of Bogie brackets for the new U-truck. Forms & Gears has undertaken to manufacture a minimum of 500 Bogie brackets every month. Furthermore, the company is also holding discussions with other OEMs for prototyping and supply of machined components as it is already developing precision fixtures for these companies, Recent projects for which the company has developed fixtures for are the Mahindra Mini LCV category which would compete in both the commercial and passenger segments with Tata Motors Magic and equivalents. Forms and Gears have also developed cylinder block fixtures recently for the new vehicle to be brought out by Nissan- Leyland's JV soon. "Forms & Gears is already in the business of fixtures and getting into auto component manufacture was a natural transition as we have the right resources namely people with manufacturing know how and facilities involving contemporary machining centres with high speed and accuracy", Ramani said. Started in 1972 by R.T. Varghese, a mechanical engineer from I.I.T Kharaghpur, Forms and Gears has over 35 years of fixture building experience. A huge chunk of its business is derived from overseas firms based in Germany, Japan, Singapore and the US. A number of big-league firms like Mazak, Makino, NTC, MAG, JTEK-Toyoda, Hyundai, Ford, Tata Motors, Mahindra, Volvo-Eicher, Cummins, John Deere, Caterpillar etc have already been sourcing products from Forms & Gears. Forms and Gears has been in the fixture building business for 39 years and owns three factories at the Industrial Estate in Guindy, Chennai, housing one of the largest and best equipped privately owned tool room facilities in the country.