General Motors has commissioned its India Design Studio at Bangalore in a move to further strengthen its global presence and provide world-class design services to GM’s operations in India and other parts of the world. The new infrastructure will enable the design studio to play a growing role in the GM Design network. With help from technologies such as a clay milling capability, along with supporting equipment and virtual reality technology, the GM India Design Studio will contribute to the mid-cycle enhancement of existing models and the advanced design of future products. High-tech visualization equipment will allow for surface quality reviews, which are needed to support interior trim work. In addition, the digital (alias) surfacing skills of the GMTCI team will be enhanced through interaction with clay by enabling the sculptor to see and feel physical surfaces created in a virtual environment. 

The GM India Design Studio will be capable of supporting a global design strategy for GMTCI, making it GM’s center of expertise for interior trim and component surfacing, and enabling it to progress toward developing a full studio capability. The studio will also play a key role for the GM Design network as a “listening post” in India to gather and understand local product design requirements. The GM India Design Studio will complement the four-year-old GMTCI. One of four GM technical centers in the Asia Pacific region, GMTCI has a base of more than 900 employees who are carrying out important research and development and engineering work for GM in India and globally. The design studio also will work with GM’s Halol manufacturing facility as well at its Pune plant, which opens in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Worldwide, plastic is rapidly replacing steel, as a preferred material for Passenger car Fuel Systems, but the Indian Automotive Industry has been slow to adopt this trend. With the advent of new generation vehicles and global car manufacturers setting up facilities in India, adoption of plastic Fuel tanks has taken place in some models of cars manufactured by Ford, Honda and GM. This being so, Plastic has scored over Steel in areas of safety, design flexibility and ability to meet emission norms. 

Zoom Developers Pvt. Ltd., the flagship company of Zoom Enterprises, has finalised a 49:51 Joint Venture partnership with YAPP Automotive Parts Company Ltd. China, to set up an Automotive Plastic Fuel Tank manufacturing facility in Chennai. The proposed investment is to the tune of 14 Million USD, in the initial phase, and production is likely to start in 2009. The facility will attempt to address the car/SUV segment with the product in the 30-75 litres capacity. 

YAPP was founded in December 1988, jointly invested by State Development & Investment Corporation (SDIC) and Shanghai Automotive Industry Co., Ltd.(SAIC) , it is a group enterprise, specializing in developing , manufacturing and selling auto plastic fuel tank (PFT). With headquarters and R&D centre in Yangzhou, YAPP covers 10 plants located respectively in Yangzhou, Shanghai, Changchun, Chongqing, Tianjin,Yantai, Yancheng, Shenyang etc. and one subsidiary with 50% shares, Wuhan YAPP Auto Plastic Co., Ltd. . 

Zoom Developers started business in 1991 and is headquartered in Mumbai. It has regional presence in major metros and its global operations span USA, UK, Singapore, UAE, China and Zimbabwe.

Porsche’s has opened a dealership in Mumbai on N S Patkar Marg. With the opening of the Porsche Centre Mumbai in south Mumbai and an overall investment of US$2 million the German sports car maker is all set to provide its customers in the subcontinent’s powerhouse with a state-of-the-art facility. Construction of Porsche’s showroom started in mid-2006, and now the finished building is home to the Porsche product range. The technological and sporting icon of Porsche, the Carrera GT is on display at the showroom. 

Ashish Chordia, CEO of Precision Cars India Pvt Ltd, importer of Porsche in India, said on the occasion: “It has always been my dream to build a world class facility in Mumbai, which will prove to be a landmark and a benchmark in the automotive history of India. The local infrastructure certainly made it difficult to pursue such a dream but now we have delivered what will be seen as a truly world-class facility. We are very proud of our achievements and look forward to providing our customers with world-class products and services."

Maruti Suzuki India's Manesar plant has won a 2007 Nikkei "Monozukuri" Award. The award reflects a high independent evaluation of technological advances and Japanese-style quality control used at the Manesar plant, which is as strategically important to Suzuki as the Kosai and Iwata plants in Japan. 

The Nikkei "Monozukuri" Awards are sponsored by Nihon Keizai Shimbun (also known as Nikkei), Japan's premier publisher of financial, business, and industry news. They are given in recognition of craftsmanship- and technology-related excellence (for example, innovations and production systems that realize exceptional productivity; training programmes that pass on advanced skills; and automation achieved through digitization of skilled tasks). 

The Manesar plant produces more than 100,000 vehicles per year for the rapidly growing Indian domestic market and for export to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Constructed on a 2,400,000m2 site, it has automatic systems for 70per cent of its welding processes and 80per cent of its painting processes. Some of its production facilities are even more advanced than those used at Suzuki plants in Japan, and its personnel take part in seminars on Japanese production techniques in order to maximize quality.

For the eighth consecutive year, Maruti Suzuki ranks highest in customer satisfaction with authorised dealership service, according to the J.D. Power Asia Pacific 2007 India Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) Study. The study, now in its 11th year, measures the overall satisfaction of vehicle owners who visited their authorized dealer/service center for maintenance or repair work during the first 12 to 18 months of ownership. Overall satisfaction is determined by utilizing seven measures. They are (in order of importance): problems experienced; service quality; user-friendly service; service advisor; service initiation; service delivery; and in- service experience. Recording only a single-point increase since 2006, overall satisfaction in the industry remains stable. 

Mohit Arora, senior director at J.D. Power Asia Pacific, Singapore, said, “Picking up and delivering vehicles provides greater convenience to customers, who travel an average of nine kilometers each way to reach their authorized service center”. The study finds that vehicle pickup and delivery before and after service has a strong impact on customer satisfaction. In particular, customers who say that their vehicle was picked up from their doorstep before service and delivered to the same point after service are notably more delighted with their after-sales service experience, compared with customers who do not receive this service. 

The study also finds that customers who service their vehicles only at authorized service centers report higher overall service satisfaction, compared with those who have also used non-authorized service centers in the past. The 2007 India Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) study is based on responses from more than 5,300 owners of nearly 40 different vehicle models. The study was fielded from May to August 2007 and includes customers who serviced their vehicles at authorized service facilities between November 2006 and August 2007.