QuEST to expand centre for Rolls-Royce

QuEST, a Rs 380-crore Bangalore-based engineering services firm, plans to expand its dedicated Rolls Royce centre in Bangalore. Quest employs over 350 people for projects related to Rolls Royce and this strength will go up to 500 by March 2010. On the whole, the company employs close to 1,800 people.

The engineering centre in Bangalore supports Rolls-Royce’s various aerospace engine programmes, and has also undertaken work on new development programmes including the XWB engine, which will power the new generation A350 aircraft. All global market sectors of the group — civil aerospace, defence aerospace, marine and energy (including the services business) — make use of the engineering services offered at the centre, according to Rolls-Royce. It costs QuEST about $20,000 to add one seat including the cost of the software. By rough calculations, QuEST would have had spent about $10 million to setup infrastructure, tools and equipment for 500 engineers.

In addition, Rolls Royce also invests in this endeavour. “We continue to train QuEST engineers at Rolls-Royce’s sites across the world, the majority of whom have spent time in the UK being trained in Rolls-Royce processes and methods,” said Ian Taylor, general manager, Rolls-Royce Operations India Ltd.

“We have invested heavily in equipment and a team of Rolls Royce engineering personnel in India,” added Taylor. The need to invest in and grow the engineering capability in India is expected to continue in line with Rolls-Royce’s business requirements, he said, without translating that into money terms.

QuEST, which had earlier seen some scope in marine engineering, is now not very positive on that sector as there is a huge inventory of already designed and built ships, and other marine vessels, and engineering today is mostly happening only in vessel modification. But it sees opportunities in sectors like healthcare with the need to design and develop medical equipment, devices and prosthetics. Nuclear engineering is another area where QuEST entered recently.