Siemens to expand Chennai engineering centre

Siemens' Chennai-based graphics & engineering center of competence is planning to double its manpower to 200 engineers over the next two years and develop applications for global market, a senior company executive said here on Wednesday.

GECC Chennai will add talented people as business expands, growing from the current manpower of 85 people to over 100 by end of this year and 200 in the next one to two years, Elangovan Karuppiah, Executive Vice President of Siemens Pte Ltd, said.

The Chennai facility was started as a second support to the main centre in Sofia, Bulgaria, about 10 years ago but became an independent entity within the group in 2011 catering to the Asia Pacific and Middle East.

Growth has been rapid over the past three years with Siemens US centres off-loading work to Chennai.

"Today, Chennai GECC is working 50 per cent for US and 50 per cent for the Asia Pacific-Middle East," said Karuppiah for the centre that began modestly with a 15-man team.

About three years ago, the US started transferring graphic and engineering work to GECC Chennai for competitive reasons.

The Chennai team is now providing graphics and engineering services for building automation systems for the Middle East, Asia Pacific and the US regions.

"This is very highly efficient and smooth organization. They are reinventing themselves continuously such as providing validation services for the pharma industry.

Today, the team is going beyond that validation of pharmaceutical standards according to FDA of the US. We plan to come out with applications as well such as digitalization related apps for use in the future," he said.

Silicon Valley startup Enlighted, a leading provider of smart IoT (Internet of Things) systems in buildings, was recently acquired by Siemens Building Technologies Division.

It is making progress from its new home in Chennai, parallel to the original US centre, Karuppiah said.

The Enlightened research activities are undertaken by a manpower of 55, involving the latest IoT sensors for the global markets.

Elsewhere on research and development, Siemens has corporate technology offices in Pune, Bangalore and Chennai, doing research in other areas such as surveillance security software.