Tenneco to ramp up outsourcing

The $3.8 billion Tenneco Automotive, a global supplier of advanced emissions and ride control systems, plans to increase auto component sourcing from India to Rs 230 crore in 2004 from Rs 130 crore in 2003.

The company has also started a new IT-enabled Shared Services Centre in Chennai yesterday. Tenneco Automotive has four plants in India at Gurgaon, Hosur, Pondicherry and Pune.

Jignesh Raval, director, global supply chain management, (Asia Pacific) said, "The global supply chain management division, that was stated in September 2002, is targeting to increase it sourcing from low cost countries to 25 per cent of the company total off-take world wide. Our target is to increase it to 35 per cent to 40 per cent from low cost countries by 2005."

The low cost countries from which Tenneco sources its components includes India, China, Taiwan, Thailand and Poland. The company has five plants in China, four in Australia, four in India and one in Thailand which covers the APAC region for Tenneco's operations.

The company also has an R&D centre and assembly line in Japan. The new shared service centre in Chennai will provide IT, HR, engineering, financial services to Tenneco's global operations.