ACI Award winners 2017
Mumbai, February 22, 2017: A new star – The ACI Award – has risen for the auto component industry in India from the stable of Next Gen Publishing, the publishers of the Auto Components India (ACI) monthly magazine. ACI has been the voice of the auto component industry and the industry’s preferred media choice since 2014. The Award is to support, motivate, recognise and encourage the path-breaking innovations and achievements in the various segments of the auto component industry.
ACI invited nominations in January 2017 for the Award in 8 categories: SME of the year; Technology Excellence; Component maker of the year; Quality Excellence; Friend of Environment; Global Footprint; Shopfloor and Manufacturing Excellence; and Component of the year.
“Though it was the inaugural edition of ACI Awards and the time to file nominations was very limited, we received 30 nominations from different segments of the components industry. All the nominations that we received were systemically structured and clear in their thought about what was achieved. It was not an easy task for the jury to choose the winners. In fact in two categories there are joint winners. This shows how tough it was for the jury to select the winners,” Bhargav, TS, Executive Editor, ACI, said.
A three–member jury comprising Kaushik Madhavan, Director, Automotive and Transportation, Frost & Sullivan, Bhushan Mhapralkar, Editor, Commercial Vehicle magazine and Bhargav TS, Executive Editor, ACI magazine, selected the winners at the jury meet held in Chennai by on January 24, 2017. The jury members have been with the industry and have witnessed the shaping up of new concepts, their unfolding into products and systems and their performance in the research labs, automotive workshops, on vehicles, in test tracks and on roads.
In the proposed 8 categories, Rane Group bagged the Component maker of the year award. For the component of the year award, there was a tough fight among 4 companies and finally Comstar lightweight starter motor and Hella head lamp with light guide technology were declared joint winners. Considering all the aspects in manufacturing, the jury decided to give a special recognition award to IAC Automotive India.
In the Global Footprint category, Fiem Industries won the award. Fiem Industries won the Friend of environment award also owing to its great contribution to manufacturing energy-efficient products. For the Shopfloor & Manufacturing Excellence award, there were 6 nominations and Tenneco Automotive India Pvt Ltd bagged it.
In the Quality Excellence category, Faurecia Interior Systems India won the award. For the Technology Excellence award 7 companies competed. Finally Visteon and Spheros Motherson Thermal Systems were the winners. Precision Engineering from Chennai won the SME of the year award based on its various achievements in 2016.
The awards were presented to the winners at a glittering function in Mumbai on February 9, 2017. In his welcome address, Hoshang S Bilimoria, Chief Executive Officer, Next Gen Publishing, said, “We are very much excited to invite you all for the first edition of Auto Components India awards. It all started just a few years ago when Next Gen set up its venture with its Car India and Bike India titles. Later we moved ahead with Commercial Vehicles which has marked a fantastic growth and success and in the recent past we stepped into the fourth venture in the automotive components space.”
He further said, “We have seen the auto components industry’s growth potential and significance in India and abroad and started this Auto Components India (ACI) magazine. We are very much delighted to say that the ACI magazine is celebrating its 3rd Anniversary in March 2017 and we had a pleasant 2 year go with the magazine. By the end of last year we decided to start off ACI award with a small jury to decide on the award winners. We hope in future with the support of the industry the ACI Awards will be spun off just like our other awards.”
