One of the most automated lines in the country is getting ready at Tata Motors in Pune. Kuka Robotics (India) Pvt Ltd has been working on this new line for the new Indica or the X1. One minute is what it will take per car.
Raj Singh Rathee, MD, Kuka Robotics India, said this was the most automated automotive line with the highest level of safety in India having 326 robots on a single line. The largest till now was in the leading auto company which was less than 200. The older lines of Tata Motors had 70 robots.
This is the same level of line that Mercedes has in Germany and these are the standards that Tata Motors is following and calls for minimal manual interference. According to Rathee this new line was capable of producing more cars and could do 2,70,000 cars per year or around 900 cars a day. This was a Rs 300 crore business.
Apart from the car plant, the robotics fever has also reached the commercial vehicles plant with the truck lines also beginning to get automated. The New Sumo and New Safari lines are also being automated with Kuka handling all the work including the solutions part entirely from India. Cabins for trucks are also being made by robots in the Jamsedpur plant.
Kuka isa 100 per cent subsidiary of Kuka Roboter GmbH based in Augsburg, Germany. Kuka is a supplier of industrial robots worldwide and finds India one of the world’s fastest growing robot markets. Japan is the largest robot market. The Indian market is growing at 30 to 40% and 70% of the market is from the automotive segment, Rathee said.
In two years Kuka has an installed base of 550 robots in the country. Apart from the large OEMs, Kuka is also seeing demand from small and medium size companies.
Kuka operates in India through three companies — Kuka Robotics, Kuka Systems and HLS, a design and engineering arm that does work for both Indian and global markets.