dampersJamshedpur based Metaldyne-India is on a diversifying spree to expand product range, markets and customers. The company that has hitherto been catering to the commercial vehicle segment with its dampers, has ventured into the passenger car division with supplies to Nissan, and has also expanded markets to Japan, Thailand and UK, in addition to India.

In addition to dampers featured above, Metaldyne-India also makes flywheels and geared components

Presently the company is adding Ford India to its clientele to supply dampers for the OEM’s petrol engine. It is in the process of finalising the business deal to supply balancing shafts to Ford India, which will commence next year. Balancing shaft is coupled to the connecting rod to balance rotary motion.

dampers_BSanjay Sabherwal, MD, Metaldyne-India

Speaking to Auto Components India, the managing director of Metaldyne-India, Sanjay Sabherwal said the peak volume for these two products will be 400,000 per year. In the commercial vehicle segment too, the company that was primarily supplying dampers to Cummins, has expanded its customer base. During the last calendar it commenced supplies of dampers to Renault Trucks (a division of Volvo) in France. Early this year it started supplying dampers to VECV for their range of engines, he said. For some of VECV’s applications Metaldyne-India supplies bonded dampers while Metaldyne, UK supplies viscous dampers.

“Metaldyne’s multiple facilities supply a range of products to customers depending upon their application requirements. As a group, Metaldyne supplies to customers across the world and we are in the process of leveraging our Indian manufacturing capabilities in a most optimum manner, in addition to giving the customer the benefit of a global company. Metaldyne is present in 25 locations across the globe,” he said.

Bonded Dampers
Metaldyne-India is now getting into manufacturing bonded dampers and supplying to Volvo, Cummins and a few other customers. Bonded dampers are made by squeezing the rubber and pasting with adhesives, while there is no adhesive in normal dampers. Bonded dampers help in managing the slip torque well and, therefore, are confined to special applications. Metaldyne-India is creating two separate manufacturing lines for bonded dampers with an investment of Rs 15 crore at its second plant in Jamshedpur, which is incidentally an engineering arm. “The mother plant was de-bonded from the second plant and became the ‘machine to print’ facility. The capacity addition will be completed by third quarter of this calendar, which will double the cumulative capacity of Metaldyne-India to one million dampers per year, eventually becoming the largest damper manufacturer in the country,” he said. In addition to its flagship product dampers, it also makes flywheels and geared components.
dampers_C
Currently Metaldyne-India caters to nine locations of Cummins (India, Singapore, Japan, China, UK, North America, Mexico, and Brazil) on a regular basis and occasionally to its remaining world operations. For Nissan it supplies to four locations – India, Thailand, Japan and UK. Two more sites – Indonesia and Brazil will be added soon. So far, it was supplying two variants of a damper to Nissan for its petrol engine. Soon it will commence supply of the second model damper, which will be for the diesel engine. The turnover in 2012-13 was Rs 68 crore, and the company hopes to grow in the following year despite slowdown. ACI

Story & Photography : T Murrali

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