Harita Seating Systems, India’s foremost seating supplier for the commercial and agricultural vehicles, showcased a trio of seating systems for the European market at the IAA Commercial Vehicle fair held in Hannover in September. This was the first time the company exhibited at the show, signalling its intentions and readiness to expand its presence beyond the domestic market.
In an exclusive chat with MOTORINDIA, Mr. A.G. Giridharan, President, Harita Seating Systems, said: “We participated at Agritechnica last year which was an opportunity to showcase our intent and capability to serve global markets. We have products that meet the standards of the European market, both for agricultural vehicles and now for commercial vehicles as well. We supply to many global OEMs in India. As we are their preferred supplier in India, they know our capability well and we have expanded our partnership to export our products to them globally.”
Harita displayed its new generation of modular suspended seats at its booth. One was with a mechanical suspension and the other with a pneumatic suspension. The seats had a modular top structure to be able to offer the same look & feel, appearance and comfort, giving customers to choose from either of the suspension options. The seats come with a list of add-on features which make it either an entry-level one or a top-end version.
To support its global market expansion, Harita has invested heavily in R&D for new product development and testing. Mr. Giridharan shared: “We have a technical expert in Europe who gives inputs to our product development team on what the European market wants. We have significantly upgraded our R&D capability and now have a facility where we can test seats in-house for ECE certification. While this is on the statutory side, we also have testing requirements from customers for which we have installed a six-axis shaker using which seats can be tested as per customer duty-cycles. We are one of the first component suppliers in India to have invested in such equipment. We also have a test track in Germany for testing our tractor seats. So, when we talk of capability, in terms of people, competence and the breadth of our R&D testing, we are ready.”
When quizzed as to which are the target markets Harita is looking to be present in, the President responded: “We are not looking at markets in terms of geographies but instead want to be present where our customers are. For instance, we started working with John Deere on exports and today export to their facilities across four continents. We always follow our customers and are ready to support them wherever they go.”
Having embarked on an aggressive global expansion drive, Harita hopes to be ‘ahead’ in the global arena by 2019-2020 from where it is today.