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MOTORINDIA
l August 2012
“We are working with petroleum
companies such as HPCL that rec-
ommend transporters to go for ABS-
fitted vehicles. Every month 500 to
600 trucks are made safer with our
ABS. The vehicles are homologated
by OEMs and the ABS is given as an
option. Retrofitting is done in most
of the petroleum transport custom-
ers while the trend is also growing
in the passenger car segment.”
The company has developed
around 140 centres across India to
facilitate easy and quick retrofit-
ting of ABS. In the ABS system,
the company imports the ECU and
some sensors while the valves and
wiring harnesses are made locally.
It currently makes 20,000 ABS sys-
tems annually in the country and has
set an annual target of 100,000 sys-
tems to consider localisation of the
complete system.
WABCO has four plants in the
country, with the unit at Ambattur,
Chennai, operating as its mother
plant. Another plant in Chennai,
mainly catering to exports, contrib-
utes about 14 per cent to its total
turnover. It has a facility in Jam-
shedpur which caters mainly to Tata
Motors and Tata Cummins and an-
other assembly plant in Pantnagar
for supply to Ashok Leyland. The
company is setting up a new plant
in Lucknow which is expected to be
ready by the first quarter of 2013.
With an investment of Rs. 15 crore,
the new facility will meet the re-
quirements of WABCO’s custom-
ers in north India, which contributes
around 35 per cent to the company’s
production capacity of 100,000
brake systems annually.
component zone
WABCO has been actively in-
volved in STU driver trainings
and also conducts its own train-
ing sessions throughout the
country. Over 500 training ses-
sions are conducted in various
locations in a year, with a total
spend of Rs. 1 crore. Motor-Ve-
hicle Inspectors (MVIs) are also
trained to check and inspect
vehicles for safety. Apart from
the training sessions, a group
of drivers, engineers, bus oper-
ators, fleet owners, tanker op-
erators are taken to the compa-
ny’s site and demonstrated the
importance and advantages of
ABS periodically.