Bosch sets up common rail pumps facility

To invest Rs 550 cr to make 6 lakh systems by 2010

Bosch Group on Thursday commissioned its first manufacturing facility in India in Bangalore for common rail high pressure pumps used in diesel cars. Bosch has earmarked Rs 550 crore for the facility out of the Rs 1,800 crore investment being made in India between 2005 and 2008.

Bernd Bohr, member, board of management, Robert Bosch GmbH said, "Nearly every automaker in India has announced their entry into the diesel car market. By 2010, our product will be seen in 60 per cent of the diesel cars in India" when there will be one million diesel cars. In 2005, Bosch sold 40,000 common rail systems in India.

The production line, located at Bosch's subsidiary Motor Industries Company Limited (MICO), has an installed capacity of up to 1,000 common rail high pressure pumps per day.

Bosch has been manufacturing common rail injector component sets at its Nashik facility from January this year and now has a capacity to produce 4,000 sets per day. The production of complete common rail injectors from the same facility will commence in 2007, Bohr said.

Albert Hieronimus, managing director, Motor Industries Company Limited said, "This investment will go a long way in making the common rail technology easily available and more affordable for the Indian customer. We are investing not only in setting up manufacturing facilities, but also product development, application and testing competencies. With these local competencies we will be able to have shorter development times and also adapt the products to the local requirements more effectively." Later, Bohr handed over the first pump to a customer at a function.

The Bosch Group reported a consolidated sales of Rs 4,000 crore in India in 2005. This is expected to grow by 17 per cent to Rs 4,700 crore in 2006.

"India could be one of the world's five most important automobile markets by the beginning of the next decade. It will be one of the growth motors for our business in Asia Pacific," Bohr said.

At the end of 2005, over 2,500 of its roughly 2,900 associates worked in software development, 800 more than last year. The growth will continue further.

At the end of 2006 it is expected that Robert Bosch India will have 3,600 associates, 3,000 of them in software development.

"This is a brains trust for our entire automotive technology business. In our global development work for the automobile, we rely on software specialists from Bangalore and soon also from Coimbatore where our new development centre will be inaugurated shortly," Bohr added.