Aurangabad-based Endurance Technologies has acquired yet another European company, Fondalmec S.p.A of Italy. The Fondalmec acquisition comes after the leading Indian supplier picked up Nuova Renopress of Italy and Amann Druckguss of Germany early this year. Turin-based Fondalmec is into high-pressure die casting and machining. The sales turnover of the machining plant is Euro 68 million and that of the die-casting facility, is Euro 15 million. Fondalmec, whose die casting facility is equipped with 10 machines ranging from 400-tonnes to 1650-tonnes, serves automakers like Fiat, Renault, Peugeot and General Motors. 

Speaking on the occasion, Anurang Jain, managing director, Endurance Group, said, “With this new acquisition, the total expected sales turnover of the Endurance Group for the overseas companies is expected to be Euro 140 million (Fondalmec is estimated at Euro 75 million, Amann at Euro 42 million and Nuova Renopress at Euro 23 million) in the year 2007. This recent acquisition will help us achieve our goal of being the global leader in the aluminium die casting and machining by the year 2012.” Endurance has 18 plants in 5 geographical locations in India and 5 plants in Europe through its acquisitions. The company’s focus on being close to its customers has paid off with the customer list continuously increasing.

Avtec Limited (part of the Rs 5000-Crore GP-CK Birla group with 30 per cent equity participation from Actis) has achieved revenue of Rs 570 crores in its second year of operation. For the independent manufacturer of automotive engines, transmissions and powertrain components, this represents a revenue growth of 15per cent over the previous year. Unit production reached a record annual level of 122,000 engines and transmissions. 

In the past year, Avtec strengthened its internal operations for better capacity utilization and productivity leading to improved competitiveness in its goal to become the preferred precision engineered products supplier in India and export markets. The company also significantly improved its quality and delivery performance to all its customers. Avtec has commissioned its third integrated manufacturing unit in the Madras export processing zone, Tambaram, and the production and export of transmissions, which commenced in August 2006, doubled to Rs 25 crores during this year.

Dassault Systèmes announced a strategic initiative from Simulia to deliver solutions for Simulation Lifecycle Management (SLM) recently. The new product portfolio is the result of bringing together the proven benefits of managing simulation data, applications, and processes with a world-class simulation environment. Simulia SLM solutions will enable companies to integrate simulation earlier and more effectively into their product and process development activities and, in so doing, fully leverage their simulation expertise as a valuable corporate asset. 

“Accurate and consistent simulation has to be at the heart of any design and manufacturing development process,” stated Frank Popielas, manager advanced engineering, Dana Sealing Products Division. “In order for simulation to provide more than a partial picture, we need system simulation capabilities as well as the ability to carry over simulation results from one stage to the next. A good example of this is the influence that manufacturing processes have on the functional behavior of the final product. Simulia’s SLM initiative is the right thing to do to get there in a reliable and consistent fashion.” “Our SLM solutions are a testimony to the combination of simulation and PLM expertise that only Dassault Systèmes can offer,” said Mark Goldstein, CEO, Simulia. “We are leveraging the wealth of technology and talent in our Simulia and Enovia development organizations to deliver the world’s only robust simulation lifecycle solution.” 

In addition to a standard Web interface, the new Simulla SLM products will utilize the recently announced 3DLive technology from Dassault Systèmes for 3DSearch, 3DNavigation, and 3DCollaboration, so that users can query, manage, and collaborate on any simulation information regardless of location, source, or format. Built on Dassault Systèmes’ V5 SOA architecture, SLM will bring PLM SOA based lifecycle management capabilities to simulation workgroups and virtual testing applications found in a wide variety of engineering and scientific domains as well as to new types of users and communities. The complete SLM solution will address the collective needs of the most demanding analysis expert as well as those of product designers who require validated simulation methods to drive rapid design decisions. In addition to SLM support for Abaqus Unified FEA and Catia V5 Analysis applications, Simulia is also extending its industry-leading partnership program to allow CAA V5 partners, other third-party application vendors and customers to link to the SLM platform using a new connector toolkit and open simulation interchange model.

The partnership between Officine Panerai and Ferrari continues. Panerai, this year, will sponsor the Shell Ferrari Historic Challenge, a championship with a very special atmosphere and strong links with the history of the House of Maranello. There are two different series, in Europe and North America (four events in the former and five in the latter, as well as the now traditional final event common to both, the Ferrari World Finals), in which Ferraris produced up to 1982 take part. 

The cars are divided into categories based on their characteristics: pre-war single-seaters, cars with drum brakes (that is, produced in the 1950s and 1960s) and cars with disc brakes (up to 1982) which compete on different starting grids.It is significant that among the cars registered to take part in the event, five were produced between 1934 and 1939. It was during that period in Florence, not very far from Maranello, that Giuseppe Panerai created the first Radiomir model: a technically advanced watch which was the first of the series of watches made by the Panerai family for the Italian Navy. The most important event in the 2007 Shell Ferrari Historic Challenge Europe will take place at the Mugello Autodrome (which at the same time will be hosting a truly international festival of vintage motor racing), followed by the great classic venues of Silverstone and Le Mans.

German luxury carmaker, BMW, is in the process of setting up an international purchasing office in New Delhi to cater to its worldwide ancillaries requirement. The office is said to be operational by August this year. BMW currently has a purchase unit for its India operations at Chennai. According to industry sources the German carmaker sources some IT components from India and is looking to expand the basket of products sourced from India. A sourcing team is expected to visit India very soon.