The Noida-based PPAP Automotive, manufacturer of automotive sealing systems and injection moulding parts, plants to commence production of sealing systems at its Chennai plant, mainly for Renault- Nissan, from next year. The plant is awaiting regulatory approvals to commence the construction. Abhishek Jain, Executive Director, PPAP Automotive said,” we are ready to start the construction work at Chennai. Only the regulatory approvals have to be in place. Discussions are going on for that. The plant will be operational by the last quarter of the financial year. By and large the plant will meet the sealing systems needs of Renault- Nissan. But we do not want to dedicate the plant only for Renault- Nissan. We have capacity to meet other demands too.”
PPAP started production of parts of Maruti Suzuki 25 years ago. It has been upgrading its products to suit the customer needs and market trends. It always believes in value addition and value elimination (VAVE) keeping quality at the forefront. ‘First time right’ is its production criterion and the company targets to achieve zero-defect ppm in quality and delivery performance.
The company’s focus is on the passenger car and commercial vehicle segments. It will be manufacturing and supplying sealing systems for Maruti’s one-tonne truck which is to be launched soon. It also supplies small parts to Daimler India Commercial Vehicle (DICV) and is in talks with Tata Motors for its commercial vehicles. PPAP has bagged order from Isuzu commercial vehicles for automotive sealing parts.
Highlighting the company’s localization strength, Jain said, “Raw materials are localised up to 80% and increasing the localisation level is still on our cards. The raw materials we use are specially designed for our applications. PVC, thermoplastic and EPDM are the raw materials used for automotive sealing parts. Along with PVC and TPO, PP and ABS are used for injection moulding. All raw materials carry with them special grades and that makes localisation difficult for us. We have our own laboratory to test the raw materials. We have everything under one roof to meet our clients’ requirement for the highest levels of Quality, Cost, Delivery (QCD) matrix. Our R&D team designs and addresses the needs of our customers on the spot and places us above the rest.”
PPAP’S Engineering Centre in Noida takes care of product design, tool design, checking fixtures and special purpose machine building. Product design demands much attention as this could be done only in collaboration with OEMs. Every product has to go through several levels of approvals and only a consultative approach will take it to the production stage.
About the sources of technology Jain said,” Our technology partners, Tokai Kogyo Co. Ltd and Nissen Chemitec Corporation meet all our technology demands and give us solutions. Nissen has a technology centre in Thailand where our engineers also get trained. We have 4 Thailand-trained employees.”
PPAP takes on its competitors and proves its robustness with the mantra of everything under one roof. Laboratories, tool design, prototyping, testing of products and special purpose machine manufacturing are done in-house to ensure the products hit the customers’ gate ‘ ready to use’. Zero-defect is what the company tries for and claims that the efforts will underline that and it is also cost competitive in the market.
PPAP products fall under 2 categories: Automotive sealing and exterior and interior injection. Products in automotive sealing include roof moulding, trim door opening, back door trunk seal, inner belt, door opening seal, air spoiler, glass run channel and moulding windshield. The exterior and interior injection products include door lining, rear tray, side protectors, in-cabin products and under hood products.” As our technology partners are from Japan we collaborated with all Japanese OEMs. Though our export lines are very thin, we managed to add Toyota in the league which already has Nissan and Honda,” Jain concluded.
