Spark Minda inaugurates new technical centre in Pune

N K Taneja, Ashok Minda and Suresh D

30/1/2018

PUNE: Global automotive component manufacturer Spark Minda, Ashok Minda Group today inaugurated its state-of-the-art facility – Spark Minda Technical Centre (SMIT) – at Chakan, Pune.

According to the company, SMIT will foster the technology development journey of the existing Group businesses and enable their initiatives towards electronification and also strengthen and expand the Group’s presence complete automotive system solutions provider.

The Centre will nurture innovation and actively pursue opportunities in the area of new-generation technologies like connected, autonomous, electrified mobility solutions, body control and multi-function controllers, smart security and vehicle access solutions. It would also explore incubation of future technologies like deep learning, artificial intelligence, internet of things, smart vehicles technologies, prognosis and diagnosis.

According to Ashok Minda, chairman and Group CEO, Spark Minda, “The establishment of the Spark Minda Technical Centre is a significant step to propel us towards attaining technology leadership in the automotive sub-systems domain. SMIT will lead the technology journey of our business apart from steering the Group towards generation of new and future technologies. Our Group is committed to further expand this centre in the next 3 to 4 years to further enhance the R&D and to bring the products faster to the market. It is clear from the forecast that the electronics content in every vehicle is going to increase and hence a strong presence of embedded technologies will secure our future.”

N K Taneja, Group chief marketing officer, Spark Minda, Ashok Minda Group, said, “Automotive customers are expecting more and more technology content and advanced features from the vehicles. With establishment of SMIT, the Group is poised to offer technology solutions to our customers. Our traditional offerings will be enriched with new technology to meet the world-class expectations of the market. SMIT will also chart out a technology road-map in line with technology expectations of the future vehicles. It will help us to position our brand image as technology partner of choice for our global customers.”

Suresh D, Group CTO and CEO, Spark Minda Technical Centre said, “It is indeed a proud moment for the Group to establish such a state of the art Centre catering to the vision towards becoming the technology leader and System Supplier. We are bringing focus to our journey by redefining our thought process and strategy with global mega-trends in automotive subsystems like connected, autonomous, shared and electrified mobility. The young and vibrant work-force stimulated by the culture of innovation at our Centre has already started showing results.”

Spark Minda currently has 35 manufacturing facilities world-wide, and provides direct employment to more than 16,000 people and indirect employment to several thousands more. Over the past few years, Spark Minda, Ashok Minda Group has done strategic acquisitions in Germany and Poland along with green-field projects in Indonesia, Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Czech Republic.