Tata Indica - The Making Of The Small Car

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Vendor Development Contd...

Telco even involved its vendors in the design-process to give suppliers more lead time to innovate, and for better supply chain coordination. Commented T.K. Balaji, CEO, Lucas-TVS, which supplied electrical components and fuel-injection systems for the Indica, "By making vendors its partner early, TELCO ensured both quality and price-conformity. Late involvement would have yielded different results." M.S. Kumar, Director & CEO, Rane TRW Steering Systems (Rane), which supplied the steering systems for the Indica, added, "TELCO has been extremely supportive, making available its entire R&D resources to our engineers. It is one of the best experiences we have had in product-development." Telco wanted Rane to design a system that would meet the peculiarities of Indian road conditions. Besides offering both manual and power systems, Rane also had to come out with a left-hand drive variant for the export market.

Rane had to go deep into application engineering because the front axle-weight of the Indica was heavier, and its engine-displacement, higher. Indica was not only compact, which left less space, but also heavy, which strained the system. Telco wanted Rane to benchmark the maneuverability of the Indica against the Zen, a much-lighter car. Rane took about 16 months to develop and get the steering system approved, spending close to 2 man-years on it. It spent Rs 16 million on development costs for the power steering system--including tooling and dies--and Rs 10 million for the manual steering system.

Said P.R. Sarathy, President, Rane (Madras), "TELCO gave us price-targets. We worked within them, using value-engineering and concurrent engineering to lower our development costs. For all effective purposes, we were an arm of TELCO during the process." In the case of small vendors, Telco examined their processes- and cost-levels. Telco configured its suppliers in 2 tiers. Tier I suppliers had to assemble sub-systems using components provided by Tier II vendors. Telco asked the latter to supply products at low margins to the former. On its part, Telco helped them lower their costs by solving quality-related problems.

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