Tamil Nadu turns sunshine state for Yamaha’s R and D

Yasuo Ishihara, MD, joined the company in Japan as a body and chassis designer in 1987. Since then, his long association with the auto major has seen him handling various functions including the development of scooter models. Now, he steers the R&D efforts for Yamaha, which entered India five years ago. 

The research veteran shuttles between Surajpur in Delhi, where its other R&D centre is located and Chennai, as he charts out the path for the company for tapping the export potential or preparing for the debut of e-vehicles in the market. The cost-conscious market is not yet geared as far as the infrastructure or policy is concerned. But, Ishihara is upbeat about the engineering talent available in this part of the country. He says, “the climate and the market here are extremely dynamic. When a new part is to be produced, it is made available here within few weeks, whereas in Japan, when the same proposition is made, the engineers get back with a timeline of six months.” The R&D Centre in Chennai deploys over 100 people.

Immensely impressed with the engineering skillsets available here, Ishihara says the Japanese company has an appetite for such talent. There are also two-way exchange programmes that facilitate engineers to learn and be prepared for futuristic technologies. From the days of tinkering or fine-tuning existing designs to cost-reduction strategies, the R&D team is now gearing itself to provide comprehensive product solutions on an endto-end basis. This means making trendier and sporty products or evaluating different grades of materials like steel so that the components designed and produced here are of global standards, he says. Plans are afoot to double the head-count too.

Out of one million products manufactured from the Chennai factory, 9 lakh units have been made for the domestic market with the balance for exports. Some of the top line brands include Fascino, the “most produced product” with 3.7 lakh units. Of the planned Rs 1,500 cr investments, Rs 1,440 cr has been invested in Chennai facility.