As Indian overground commuter transport is expanded and upgraded and metro systems start to take off, Jane Bordenave talks to Rajeev Jyoti, president and managing director of Bombardier Transportation India, about his company’s key role in these developments and how the market is changing.
Bombardier Transportation India has been manufacturing components for India’s rail transport network for over three decades. Part of the global manufacturing giant Bombardier Inc, the company employs 1,200 people spread over two plants in and around the city of Vadodara, Gujarat and an engineering centre in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.
In broad terms, today the company manufactures its highly advanced MOVIA metro cars for city metro systems and propulsion systems and components for Indian Railways, the nationally owned rail company. “Although Indian Railways is a very large, highly vertically integrated company, it is largely decentralised,” says Rajeev Jyoti, president and managing director of Bombardier Transportation India. “Consequently, it has a structure that is composed of many semi-autonomous units. The effect for us is that we are not dealing with one institution, but a string of customers, all housed within Indian Railways.”
A result of this vertically integrated structure in the client company is that they manufacture many of their own train parts. “Prior to our arrival, Indian Railways produced everything themselves, from locomotives to bogies [undercarriages],” explains Jyoti. “This was largely a hangover from when India had a closed economy, with high import tariffs and taxes to prevent imports.” Now, the Indian economy has opened up and is trading with the rest of the world; however, the self-sufficient structure has partly remained. “As Indian Railways still produces much of its own infrastructure, we work with them in a complementary manner, supporting them in the services department, supplying spares and replacement parts and providing them with electro-mechanical equipment that they do not make themselves. We also provide them with signalling equipment.”
Nevertheless, Jyoti is seeing a paradigm shift within Indian Railways. “The Railways is starting to realise that its own products are of old technology. This has spurred a move towards greater engagement in public-private partnerships. Indian Railways believes that working in this way will not only help to upgrade its technology and rolling stock, but will also streamline and speed up production, so there is potential for growth here.”
The company’s involvement with the metro systems is very different. “We supply everything for the metro network, including carriages, bogies, signalling equipment and electronics,” says Jyoti. The most notable metro project Bombardier has been involved with is the Delhi Metro. “The city is currently undergoing phase two of its underground / elevated rail expansion project. After an international competitive bid, we were awarded the first contract in 2007 and the deliveries will be largely completed in time for the Commonwealth Games next October. The total order is for 498 metro carriages, worth over €600 million.”
To cope with the increased output and short timescale, the firm built a new factory on a greenfield site in Vadodara. However, a new plant wasn’t the only thing that needed to be created. “We had to train people up across the board, in the different areas of manufacture, management and so on, all in a manner that fitted the timeline,” Jyoti explains. “These were our main challenges and we can proudly say we’ve successfully overcome them. It is not something that will just benefit this project—the whole contract provided us with an opportunity for growth in this manner. The construction of this new site has taken Bombardier to the number one position in the field of metro train manufacture in India.”
The success of Delhi Metro even before its expansion is also making other cities look at improving their own infrastructure with a modern underground railway system. “Delhi Metro first came online in 2002 and was the first modern metro system in the country,” says Jyoti. “Now, places like Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad are becoming very interested in installing a similar system. These cities have between four million and twenty million people living there and the numbers are growing due to their booming economies. So they have identified a need to update their infrastructure to cope with the sheer weight of numbers, with the solution being an underground or elevated metro rail system.”
The company has recently made an investment in state-of-the-art robotic welding equipment and, in doing so, has become the first company using technology of this kind in India. “We use two different types of robotic welders at Bombardier,” says Jyoti. “The first is robotic huck bolting—using this system, the carriage shell is in fact bolted together, rather than welded, but in a manner that is just as secure as welding. The second is for the manufacture of the panels that will go on to be bolted together as a carriage.” The panels in question can be up to 22 metres long and require extensive welding inside. The robots can weld over the length of these sheets to create side panels, ceilings, floors etc.
The advantage of using this technology, Jyoti explains, is that it ensures repeatability, quality and full integration of the body shell. “If we were to do this manually, we would need a large team of highly skilled welders and even then repeatability is not guaranteed. However, we haven’t done away with human welders all together. Much of the welding on the bogies is done by hand, as there are so many small and complex parts to deal with that the robots can’t handle.”
As the Indian economy continues to open up and grow, it needs companies that can lead the way with technology, know-how and specialised skills. As one of the world’s leading train manufacturers, Bombardier has the expertise needed not just to help in the current phase of commuter rail expansion, but also to take it into the future. Projects such as Delhi Metro have shown what the company is capable of, and other cities and expansion on the part of Indian Railways offer opportunities for further growth. You can therefore be certain that Bombardier will be bringing cutting edge commuter transport solutions to the cities of India for a long time to come. www.bombardier.com
