D. Murali and T. Murrali

Chennai: Education level, availability of qualified engineers, quality of engineers, flexibility, cost efficiency of labour when compared to Europe and the US, and the philosophy and the interest of Indian engineers to learn and to look for improving existing designs, not just to copy.

These are the factors that weighed in favour of India when Mann+Hummel (www.mann-hummel.com) of Germany wanted to set up a design and engineering centre. The group, with a history going back to the early 1940s, employs around 10,500 people at 41 locations worldwide. It earned in 2006 a revenue of 1.6 billion euros, about three-quarters of which came from the business with the automotive and the motor spares trade customers.

Recently, Mr Peter Wink, Managing Director of Mann And Hummel Filter Pvt. Ltd India joined us over a lunch at Business Line. “Are you doing anything for Nano?” we asked him.

At present, the company is not doing any thing for Nano directly, Mr Wink replied, without batting an eyelid. He, however, spoke of discussions with almost all the automotive OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in India, both passenger car and commercial vehicles, and also the OEMs in the construction and agricultural machinery field. In most of the future models, he was confident that his company would play a major role when it comes to filter and filtration systems.

On a personal note, we wonder what the takeaways have been for Mr Wink, from India, and what is it that he thinks Indians can most benefit from Germans. “Living in India has given me as well as my family a very intensive and positive insights, view and experience of one of the most interesting cultures and nations in the world,” he responds. “We have been and we are enjoying the interactions with different people on private as well as on business purposes, and we will never forget these great experiences.”

Speaking about how Indians can benefit from his country, Mr Wink suggests that if we can manage to create a combination of structured, reliable, planned and organised way of doing business in Germany with the flexibility, motivation and improvisational skills from Indians, then we have a mix of character/working style which will be very successful.

“This, by the way, is also the mentality and philosophy I have implemented right from the beginning in our Indian organisation and I feel our employees like it very much. Our success shows that it is the right way,” says the confident boss of Mann+Hummel’s India operations. We continue our conversation over the e-mail…

Excerpts from the interview.

What’s the objective of setting up a manufacturing facility in India?

The expansion of the Indian business is an important milestone within the group’s strategic activities. Mann+Hummel, the development partner and original equipment supplier to international automotive and mechanical engineering industries, is focusing attention on consistent internationalisation and globalisation in order to strengthen its worldwide competitiveness and market access.

The global strategy includes, as the third support column, Asia, in addition to Europe with its borders extending eastward, and America, which includes the NAFTA region, Brazil and Argentina. Together with China, Japan and Korea, India plays a major role in the Asian strategy of the company. We aim to be one of the top 5 suppliers in Asia, in our segment.

Double-digit growth figures, which are projected for the next 5 years for the Indian automobile industry, huge market size, and a highly educated and skilled workforce are the key factors.

With the new trend of low-cost vehicles and an increasing potential to export across the world, India will play a key role and act as a hub for high-end but cost-efficient engineering and production capabilities.

The new revolution in the sophisticated systems for engine and vehicle propulsion (e.g. electronic injection systems, brake systems), boost systems for increasing power outputs, exhaust gas after-treatment systems for emission reduction will call for the technical trend towards integration of products into systems, and replacement of heavy metallic parts through plastics, to achieve weight and cost savings and, as a consequence, reduction in fuel consumption.

We need state-of-the-art facilities with a skilled workforce that can develop, integrate to meet the requirements of the new-generation vehicles. Mann+Hummel, which is already catering to major OEMs across the world, is here in India to serve the Indian market.

Alternate material is catching up in a big way, even in India, due to its inherent advantages. Your take.

Plastic intake manifold is only one of the products that we are offering to the Indian OEMs at present. Other than that, we have a lot of other products, such as centrifuge, air intake systems, air and liquid filter elements. For industrial applications, we are manufacturing air oil separators, air filter systems etc.

One of our big strengths is the engineering and production know-how for all the above-mentioned products in plastic, while using different production technologies and materials. We are capable of replacing current designs and materials, mainly out of metal, for most of the applications.

What are your plans for global sourcing? Could you indicate the variety of components you plan to source from India? Also, on your international purchasing initiative.

One of the key factors for success in the future is to improve continuously the quality of production, and also of material supply, while maintaining or decreasing the price level and improving efficiency.

For reaching this target we are working in three different directions: one, look into this topic during the design phase; two, analyse the possible improvements in this segment with our current vendors; and three, and very important activity, strengthen our international purchasing activities.

We started these activities in India nearly two years ago in a very successful way, and this not just because the vendors are more cost efficient. Importantly, we find in India a vendor base, which can fulfil the international quality and reliability requirements with their standards.

Juxtaposing the Indian and Chinese plants of Mann and Hummel, would you be able to tell us about the probable synergies you see between the plants in terms of manufacturing and global sourcing?

Definitely there will be a synergy between our India and China facilities since it is not possible to have all the machinery to produce the full range of products. There is always scope for utilising the strengths of the two companies and complementing each other for growth.

At the same time, we should remember that there are specialist vendors for some commodities in India, whereas others are specialist for different commodities in China, so here the challenge will be to find out the best location to source commodities globally.

In addition we can reap synergies also in the engineering area, where we can support each other with our global engineering network to serve the customers in the best possible and efficient way.

What is the revenue contribution from Asia to the group now?

As we have just started our operations and activities in India, and also since the other Asian subsidiaries are in an expansion phase, the contribution from Asia to the group revenue, which reached in 2007 a value of 1.65 billion euros, is not too big.

Tell us about the innovation happening in Mann+Hummel.

The exciting and important step for Mann+Hummel as a group has been the development from a filter manufacturer to a research, design, development and production specialist for filtration systems in liquid and air. With this philosophy, we are ready to catch up with the new challenges from our worldwide customers in the automotive and mechanical industries, given the qualification of our employees worldwide and globalisation.

Also, special R&D (research and development) activities related to filtration are on, as for example ‘noise designing’ for our customers’ engines.

What, according to you, are the pluses that India enjoys compared to China, from a manufacturing perspective?

The major advantages that work in favour of India are: