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Fiat Ranjangaon Plant Visit
3 December 2010, Friday. This was a red-lettered day in my life. This was the day I enjoyed the maximum during my 18-day, 6148-km long mega trip spanning across 7 states of India. Yes. I am referring to the Fiat Ranjangaon factory visit, in which about 120 Fiat owners with their friends and families in their 60+ Fiat cars, participated.
We met at VITS, a business hotel in Pune. All our Fiat cars were pasted with nice Fiat stickers on both the front doors. Rajeev Kapoor, CEO, FIAL, flagged off the 60+ Fiat cars after breakfast. We drove to Fiat plant at Ranjangaon, located about 72 km from Pune on the toll-free 4-laned SH 60 to Ahmednagar.
After welcome drink/biscuits, we were taken around the engine and power transmission division, where 1.3 MJD and 1.2/1.4 FIRE engines and gear boxes are manufactured, assembled and tested. 1.4 T-Jet engines are fully imported. The Fiat engineers claimed that the Fiat Ranjangaon plant is a state-of-the-art car plant in India and the best Fiat plant in the world. The plant was clean and tidy. Robotics were used for many operations, which warranted accuracy.
Later, we were taken in a bus to car assembly plant in the same campus. Because of low volume of Fiat cars, they do not have in-house body-press shop, which needed heavy investment. FIAL supply the high tensile, low carbon steel sheets [raw material] to their vendors, who press them into different panels like doors and supply them to FIAL. However, the skin was fitted to the door panels by robots. We saw the assembly line, which was shared by three products, viz., Fiat Linea, Punto and Tata Manza. It was amazing to see the robots reconfigure themselves for different products! First, we saw robotic welding of panels with the chassis of Linea, followed by two Puntos, and then, three Manzas in the same assembly line! Fiat engineers informed us that the product details [model, variant, colour, etc.] are fed into the system before the commencement of each shift depending upon the order book.
After the plant visit, we were hosted with a delicious and sumptuous vegetarian lunch, followed by an interactive session with the top officials of FIAL including Rajeev Kapoor and Ravi Bhatia, Vice-President, FIAL. We were presented with Fiat 500 optical car mouse as memorabilia. Rajeev Kapoor shook hands with each and every one of us present. Last, but not the least, all our Fiat cars' fuel tanks were topped up with fuel!
We were not allowed in the paint-shop as it was a dust-free zone. Neither we were permitted to take photographs inside the plant.
More details are in the pipeline.
3 December 2010, Friday. This was a red-lettered day in my life. This was the day I enjoyed the maximum during my 18-day, 6148-km long mega trip spanning across 7 states of India. Yes. I am referring to the Fiat Ranjangaon factory visit, in which about 120 Fiat owners with their friends and families in their 60+ Fiat cars, participated.
We met at VITS, a business hotel in Pune. All our Fiat cars were pasted with nice Fiat stickers on both the front doors. Rajeev Kapoor, CEO, FIAL, flagged off the 60+ Fiat cars after breakfast. We drove to Fiat plant at Ranjangaon, located about 72 km from Pune on the toll-free 4-laned SH 60 to Ahmednagar.
After welcome drink/biscuits, we were taken around the engine and power transmission division, where 1.3 MJD and 1.2/1.4 FIRE engines and gear boxes are manufactured, assembled and tested. 1.4 T-Jet engines are fully imported. The Fiat engineers claimed that the Fiat Ranjangaon plant is a state-of-the-art car plant in India and the best Fiat plant in the world. The plant was clean and tidy. Robotics were used for many operations, which warranted accuracy.
Later, we were taken in a bus to car assembly plant in the same campus. Because of low volume of Fiat cars, they do not have in-house body-press shop, which needed heavy investment. FIAL supply the high tensile, low carbon steel sheets [raw material] to their vendors, who press them into different panels like doors and supply them to FIAL. However, the skin was fitted to the door panels by robots. We saw the assembly line, which was shared by three products, viz., Fiat Linea, Punto and Tata Manza. It was amazing to see the robots reconfigure themselves for different products! First, we saw robotic welding of panels with the chassis of Linea, followed by two Puntos, and then, three Manzas in the same assembly line! Fiat engineers informed us that the product details [model, variant, colour, etc.] are fed into the system before the commencement of each shift depending upon the order book.
After the plant visit, we were hosted with a delicious and sumptuous vegetarian lunch, followed by an interactive session with the top officials of FIAL including Rajeev Kapoor and Ravi Bhatia, Vice-President, FIAL. We were presented with Fiat 500 optical car mouse as memorabilia. Rajeev Kapoor shook hands with each and every one of us present. Last, but not the least, all our Fiat cars' fuel tanks were topped up with fuel!
We were not allowed in the paint-shop as it was a dust-free zone. Neither we were permitted to take photographs inside the plant.
More details are in the pipeline.
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Waiting for the complete review and pictures!
