Nissan Motor, part of the French-Japanese combine Renault-Nissan, has been the largest investment by the Asian nation in Chennai. It is now the fulcrum around which automotive investments by the Japanese are coming into the states.
In the industrial enclave of Oragadam, near Chennai, in the Renault-Nissan factory, under the bright glare of scores of fluorescent lights a bunch of young men are lovingly poring over a bug-like car. As the Nissan Micra moves forward on a conveyor belt, one of them tests how smoothly the seats move forward and backward, checking the headlamps as well, switching them on incessantly. Another tests the bonnet and finding that the clasp doesn’t sit snugly, gives it a good whack with a hammer.
Further down the line, on which different brands of cars are being checked, is a Duster, Renault’s hot selling compact SUV, on rollers for a static engine test. The Duster and other Renault brands are made at this factory where the production facilities are shared. Keep well away from the finished cars, one of the workers warns, lest our belt buckles scratch the paint. None of the men on the finishing line are allowed to wear belts for this reason, we are told.
The plant is fully operational. Employing 6,000 people, the plant churns out 1,200 cars a day. The huge parking lot is filled with cars for export, waiting the next ship to arrive.
One doesn’t see any Japanese on the production lines, which Takayuki Ishida, who till recently was the MD & CEO of Nissan Motor, acknowledges. The lines are entirely manned by Indians. All technicians and supervisors, he says, have undergone training on the Nissan way of production at its training centre before going to the line. “In the beginning, more than 200 operators have been trained in Nissan Motor in the UK in Japan, who in turn came back to India and trained the rest of them. There is a constant process of training for the workforce to ensure efficiency and perfection,” says Ishida.
As the manufacturing becomes more indigenous, Nissan would like to see the management too becoming more Indian. For now you still see a mix of Indian and Japanese faces in the canteen, though all of them seemed to be relishing the sambhar rice and vegetable curry in equal measure. Ishida, one discovers, gets a similar lunch of rice, sambhar, poriyal and buttermilk with an appalam in his office in the city, though when one meets him, it’s gone cold on the cabinet behind him. “I like it,” he says simply, when asked about Indian food.