I am currently visiting India for about 10 days. I love to visit India but I hate getting here. It is a long way from the US no matter how you do it. In this case I went from Phoenix to Philly to Frankfurt to Bangalore India. Other than being terribly long (about a 35 hour trip) nothing too interesting happened. I did take one odd video that Rhett may or may not post here. I will leave that up to him. It is totally tasteless so we will see.
Because Bangalore is the center of the computer/software explosion in India the flights in and out of here are dubbed "the nerd birds". This was my first time to Bangalore. The government designated Bangalore as the place where they would build the needed infrastructure to attract the large IT players and it has. The computer industries presence here is enormous. Bangalore has gone from a population of about 2 million to somewhere between 7 and 10 million in a relatively short period of time. What was interesting is the mix of traditional India living next to some of the most modern and advanced companies in the world.
The friend that I am visiting here got us invited to a tour of the TVS motorcycle factory here.
http://www.tvsmotor.in/ If you take all of the motorcycles sold in the US over a year and double it, that is how many bikes this company makes in a year. They employ over 4,000 people in the plant I went to and it is huge. They actually started as a subsidiary of the Lucas electrical company a generation or two ago. They later merged with Suzuki and started to make motorcycles. About 7-8 years ago they became and independent company and have thrived ever since. They are the third largest motorcycle company in India, but are also recognized as the most technologically advanced and are generally thought of as the strongest most well engineered bikes in India.
They make bikes ranging from mopeds to 160cc singles. The factory was by far the largest motorcycle factory I have ever seen. It went on and on and on. It was notable for how modern, quet and clean it was. These smaller bikes are brutally strong and reliable and are sold primarily in India, Africa and South America. They put ANY Chinese product to shame. The highlight was being allowed into their Research and Development laboratory. This was an overwhelming experience. They have a R and D facility that would be the envy of many auto manufacturers. They have the ability to design and build anything right there in the lab (covered well over 2 square city blocks) including engines (Many motorcycle manufacturers have no similar facilities.). They had equipment ranging from an Electron microscope for finite analysis of materials to their own casting plant to make experimental forgings. They have the equipment and people
to design and build an entire motorcycle right in the lab. When they design something like an engine from scratch, when it comes off the computer, they can have a running engine build in four days. They start by making the pieces in a laser controlled machine out of a very special plastic from which they make molds. They make the first 10-20 units of any new product right there in the lab including lighting etc. Their emissions testing equipments was as good as or better than anything I have seen in an EPA lab. While these are smaller cc bikes their emission numbers were very low. Their current production engines with air-cooling and carburetors can meet any standard in existence in the world today and even most if not all that are proposed. Next we were taken to the life cycle testing lab which by itself was fascinating. This is the place where they try to destroy test motorcycles to find weaknesses. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn’t seen it myself, but they have a machine that picks a bike up about 3-4 feet off the ground and drops it in freefall to the ground.
The bike has to withstand this treatment for 40,000 cycles before they are happy. Yes I said 40,000 times. They believe that represents 100,000KM of service which is their benchmark for "good enough". They had machines that tested everything, from one machine that actuated the kick starter tens of thousands of times until it failed to robotic test cells where robot arms operated the throttle, clutch , brake and transmission as commanded by a computer, The computer was set up to simulate extreme driving conditions and most any operator error a rider can make. These bikes ran 24/7 until they completed 100,000km. There was much more and unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures, but it was a great experience.
Took a side trip to Mysore today which is about 90 miles from Bangalore. It is the home of several tourist attractions most importantly the Mysore Palace.
http://www.karnataka.com/tourism/mysore/The palace was the home of the Maharajah of that area and was really something to behold. We took the train up there which was a new and pleasant experience for me and then drove home. There are several sights in Mysore and we had a very full day. Tomorrow I fly to Chennai to start my meeting with suppliers and the Royal Enfield factory. Security will be extra tight at the airport since the terrorist bombings in Hyderabad yesterday so I will have to early. More later. I have sent Rhett some pictures so hopefully he can post some here.
Topic: Dateline India (Read 20891 times)