Yamaha to ramp up production at Chennai plant        

Japanese two-wheeler manufacturer Yamaha will invest more than Rs 200 crore for its expansion plans that would take the total investment in the Chennai factory to Rs 1,500 crore, a top official said here today.

"Investments will be about Rs 200 crore.. This will be for new Assembly line in the factory.. That will take the production to nine lakh units..," India Yamaha Motor, Deputy Managing Director - Business Expansion Group, Riuji Kawashima, said.

Yamaha has invested Rs 1,300 crore so far, in the Chennai factory which began production in 2015. He was talking to PTI after the rolling out of the company's one millionth vehicle from the production line at the factory in Oragadam near Chennai.

The company has three state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in India one each at Faridabad (Haryana), Surajpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Chennai. With the setting up of new assembly line, the production will go up to nine lakh units by March 2018 from the current six lakh, he said.

At the Chennai plant, the company manufactures scooterettes -- Fascino, Ray Z, Ray ZR, Alpha and motorcycle Saluto. Fascino drives the sales volume and the company expects to sell more than one million units this year compared to 9.48 lakh units sold last year.

To a query, he said, with the expansion of Chennai plant, the number of employees would increase to 4,000 from the current 3,400 people. However, he declined to reveal the newer models that would be produced from the new assembly line once it becomes operational.

In terms of volume, India is the second largest market for Yamaha after Indonesia, he said. Exports contribute about 20 percent of the total production with products being shipped to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and North of Pakistan, he said. The FZ range of motorcycles, scooterettes Ray ZR and Fascino contribute the majority of export volume.

The Chennai unit is of strategic importance to the company's local and global business. Apart from serving the domestic market, the Chennai plant is aimed at functioning as a manufacturing base for predominantly African market, ASEAN and Latin American countries.

According to India Yamaha Motor, Vice-President, Mukesh Kumar, the Chennai facility produced 2.29 lakh units in 2015, and in 2016 it went up to 4.17 lakh units. Out of the one million produced from the Chennai factory, 8.5 lakh units would serve the domestic market while 1.5 lakh units would be shipped overseas.

The Chennai plant spread across 180 acres, is the first in the Yamaha group to have a vendor park near the facility. The vendor park has nine vendors who have invested Rs 760 crore till date, employing more than 1,900 people.

According to a company official, one vehicle is produced every 24 seconds while 2,100 units produced on a single day with the plant operating in two shifts.