With Hyundai Motor India celebrating their 20 years in India, we sat down with their MD & CEO, Mr. Y K Koo, to talk about the secret of their success in India, and how technology is helping them maximise production efficiency.
How difficult has been the process to increase your plant capacity to 750,000 units?
Spread over 535 acres, our plant near Chennai is a state-of-the-art depiction of true manufacturing excellence. We’ve achieved the 8 million production milestone through advanced production technology, best quality checks and rigorous testing of cars to deliver clean, safe and connected mobility to the customers.
In our journey of 20 years of production in India, our first plant was commissioned in year 1998 followed by the second plant in 2008 in the same vicinity for a cumulative production of 700,000 cars per annum to meet the growing demands from domestic and overseas markets. The high level of value engineering will enable us to increase our production capacity from 7 Lakh units in 2018 to 7.5 lakh units in 2019.
How helpful has been modernisation of your manufacturing with the inclusion of advanced robots and big data analysis?
As we look towards the future, we are firmly rooted in our past; our promise to go back to the basics and commit ourselves to serve our customers better as we had done earlier, remains unchanged.
As an innovative and dynamic brand, we have proactively adopted smart manufacturing practices, making us what we call industry 4.0 ready. A strong cluster of around 1,000 vendors, digitalization, big data and data analytics assist us in efficient resource management while producing superior and zero-defect cars with robust and fool-proof quality checks and assurance systems. At our plant, the seamless synergy between human intelligence and precision of machines is a combination of science and arts to create the finest cars that are loved by the customers across the world.
Both our plants are running at almost 100 % capacity, with one car rolled out every 33 seconds. It is also gearing up to produce electric vehicles in India and our target is to reach the milestone of 10 million cars roll out by early 2021.
Additionally, India’s position amongst the HMC group is becoming stronger. This plant has been honoured with the Platinum award for its excellence in production, quality & efficiency and safety in 2017 and ‘18, the highest honour that one can receive amongst all Hyundai plants, globally.
How has been your experience in improving vehicle quality and flaw prevention with usage of technology in the plant?
We have deployed over 590 – 4th generation robots in the plant that focuses on quality and manufacturing zero defect vehicles. We capture around 1.2 billion data points across the manufacturing process annually which helps us to gain insights into fine tuning of our operational processes. We are using digitalization, big data and data analytics to implement predictive and preventive maintenance to ensure that all our systems are working seamlessly.
You have made a lot of changes to the plant to conserve energy and sources. How does that fit with Hyundai’s philosophy?
As a responsible automobile manufacturer, our endeavour is to develop sustainable and ecologically viable products. Our plant is an example of ‘Green Manufacturing’ with ‘Self Sustainable resources’. Over 38,500 LED lamps not only conserve energy but saves `13 Crore every year. Our rain water harvesting program which is spread across 15 acres of land is done through 4 ponds. Additionally, Hyundai India has adopted 3 villages under the dream village project with an aim to create sustainable development, empower the community by generating employment opportunities and enhancing health conditions by ensuring cleanliness and sanitation. Under our green move initiative, to protect the environment approximately 3.25 Lakh saplings have been planted across 650 acres benefitting 210 farmers.
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