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8ak recently interviewed Bejoy George,
Chief Marketing Officer for QuEST Global about Aerospace
opportunities in India and their Aerospace SEZ. Here is an
excerpt, the full article details are below but first some
background.
India has seen more Engineering and R&D investments in
aerospace over the last 16 years, than USA or Europe. In
Bangalore, India, for example, Honeywell Technology
Solutions has a 5,500 engineer setup, while GE's Jack Welch
Technology Center has more than 3,000 engineers. Airbus,
which recently set up its Airbus Engineering Center India (AECI)
facility, aims to have 200+ engineers of its own soon, and
more than 2,000 through its partners. In this light, the
following JVs in the last year make more sense
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Tatas & Agusta Westland to make the
AW911
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Thales with Samtel and also with Rolta
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HAL and many major international
companies
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EADS and L&T
The biggest problems in Indian aerospace manufacturing
however are dispersed production centres, lack of vision and
co-ordination amongst the players, outdated tax & tariff
structure and outdated labour laws. These are the issues
that QuEST Global (www.quest-global.com)
has solved by setting up a SEZ dedicated for Aerospace.
We asked Bejoy George, Chief Marketing Officer, QuEST
Global some questions.
8ak: Tell us about the SEZ?
Bejoy: QuEST Global SEZ is spread over 300 acres at
Belgaum in Northern Karnataka and will provide an ecosystem
for OEMs, their suppliers, all ancillary and related end
user industries to set up precision manufacturing and
engineering units.
8ak: What services does QuEST itself provide?
Bejoy: QuEST Global's engineering division provides
cost-effective design services to its aerospace clients, and
also saves money for OEMs and Tier 1s by doing design in
such a way so as to save costs in manufacturing through
reduction of material costs, reduction in machining
operations, using lesser number of parts, reducing assembly
costs, etc. QuEST Global's manufacturing provides precision
machining, sheet metal working and aerospace special
processing currently.
8ak: Who are your partners?
Bejoy: The special processing company is a 50:50
joint venture with Magellan Aerospace, providing services
like anodizing, alodine, paint & primer, passivation, shot
peening, MPI, FPI, heat treatment, assembly processes,
etc.). QuEST also has an alliance with Textron Systems,
where Textron and QuEST Global will work together to develop
the manufacturing capabilities within the SEZ and attract
investment into the SEZ from the Defence and Aerospace
sector. This collaboration is part of Textron's offset
related partnerships in India.
8ak: Who are the other companies that have set up
shop in the SEZ, or are in the pipeline?
Bejoy: QuEST is at various stages of discussions with
several organizations like specialty metal suppliers,
aerospace fastener manufacturers, bearings manufacturers,
castings and forgings companies, etc.
8ak: Who are you targeting?
Bejoy: Global is inviting players across the value
chain, like aerospace specialty metal suppliers, investment,
sand and lost-wax casting companies, tooling companies,
fastener manufacturers, sheet metalworking companies,
composites manufacturing companies, and heat treatment
companies to setup shop in the SEZ. Essentially, any company
who can play a role in the Aerospace supply chain, is
invited to set up shop in the SEZ. And these can be our
customers, other companies, and even our competitors. The
aim is to create an aerospace supply chain ecosystem in the
SEZ, that will enable a wider range, larger volume and
higher value of aerospace products and services to be
sourced from India.
8ak: What can you offer them?
Bejoy: Aerospace manufacturing is another growing
area out of India. Airframe manufacturers and OEMs can
further increase their cost savings by outsourcing castings,
forgings, precision machining, sheet metal working, special
processing and assembly related activities. In addition,
further cost savings can be achieved in aerospace
manufacturing by replacement of operations that were
automated in the west, with skilled labor in India. Thus,
cost savings can be achieved in India by de-automation,
rather than by automation - the exact opposite of what
happened in the west. Add to this the benefits offered by
operating within an SEZ (15 year tax holidays, zero customs
duties, etc.) and the financial benefits to companies
becomes very significant. Also, these companies will not
have to worry about any infrastructure - the SEZ will have
well developed roads, alternate sources of power with
backup, plenty of water supply, IT and communication
infrastructure, conference/meeting room facilities, local
transportation, 24 hour security, etc. In addition, QuEST
will also facilitate the SEZ occupants in terms of building
the facilities, hiring of employees, etc.
8ak: Why Belgaum? Why not somewhere closer to HAL ie
Bangalore, Kanpur etc?
Note: Belgaum was selected because of its lower costs
of land/infrastructure/labor/living, and also because of the
availability of abundant talent for manufacturing and
engineering in and around Belgaum - there are more than 2000
foundries and machine shops in a 1000 km radius of the
vicinity, along with 60+ engineering, diploma and ITI
institutes). The weather in Belgaum is pretty much like
Bangalore's (probably better). And Belgaum is excellently
located logistically, with 3 airports (Belgaum, Hubli,
Kolhapur) in a 90 minute driving range, on the NH4 Golden
Quadrilateral highway network of India, equidistant from
Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai, and an overnight journey
from the Mumbai port. We expect 2 more ports to become
accessible for our operations in the next few years (Goa and
Karwar). For all these reasons, we selected Belgaum for our
SEZ location.
Source:
http://www.8ak.in/
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