It is with this vast experience in bus body building that he started KMS Coach Builders in 2006 with its manufacturing facility on the outskirts of Bangalore.
Mr. Shariff says: “In India, the perception of passenger transport is undergoing a radical change. The travelling public is looking for more comfort & better aesthetics. Quality is another aspect which the customers attach greater importance. Keeping these facts in view we are planning to develop buses which are passenger-friendly.”
In a short span of two years, KMS has established itself as an important fabricator of bus bodies for all major State transport corporations, including BMTC, KSRTC, NEKRTC, NWKRTC, MTC (Chennai), TNSTC and APSRTC. The company has been working closely with Ashok Leyland and Tata Motors for executing these orders.
KMS has established a fully equipped facility for bus body building, which is equipped with painting booth with the baking facility, 10 tank process zinc plating & hot phosphating, machine shop comprising of heavy duty shearing machine and press brake to fabricate components, water shower plant for roof leakage test, CO2, Mig-Mag welding equipments, hydraulically operated panel stretching equipment, centralized screw compressor for operation of pneumatic tools and diesel generators for uninterrupted power supply.
KMS has a workforce of over 1,200 people who are employed in various bus body building units of State transport corporations on labor contract basis. This is a key strength of KMS as it has an experienced labor force capable of building all types of bus bodies be it the stage carriers or the high end luxury air-conditioned buses.
In the last two years, the company has built over 2000 buses, including the ‘Meghadoot’ air-conditioned luxury buses for KSRTC, ‘Rajahamsa’ luxury buses, moffussil type buses for STUs with tubular structure, City type double-door buses with 2 x 2 seats, ‘Suvarna’ improvised city type buses with passenger-friendly features, suburban type double door buses with 3 x 2 seats, and staff & school buses for educational institutions. The company has a very strong technical team headed by Mr. N. Gangadhar who is the Technical Director of KMS. Mr. Gangadhar comes with years of technical experience working for leading automobile manufacturers.
At its current facility KMS has a capacity to build 75 buses. With the plant running to full capacity, KMS is now planning to set up another facility near Hosur to cater to the requirements of Ashok Leyland. The complete financial assistance for KMS has been provided by State Bank of Mysore.
Certified to ISO 9001/2008, KMS is already completed the formalities for the accredition process with CIRT and they have been listed under the ‘A’ category.
The company is also working jointly with OEMs in developing new models and designs. It has recently developed a new city bus for Ashok Leyland. These buses supplied to BMTC are being operated from different parts of the city to the Bangalore International Airport. BMTC has added over 300 buses of this type to its fleet in just six months. Recently BMTC has inducted a new series of BIG – 10 buses, also built by KMS.
