Bosch Siemens ramps Up localisation plans

BSH Household Appliances is on its way to increase localisation at it Chennai-based plant. It plans to increase it to 70 percent from 40 percent. The company is also planning to invest about euro 100 million in the Indian market in the coming five years. This would be for research and development (R&D), augmenting manufacturing and marketing initiatives.
Gunjan Srivastava, managing director and chief executive officer of BSH Household Appliances Manufacturing said, “We currently make the front load washing machines in India at our plant near Chennai, and have a mix of local and global suppliers. The localisation level is around 40 percent and we have set a target to take that up to 70 percent in the coming few years.”

The plant at Chennai can produce up to 300,000 units of front load washing machines yearly with it only utilising less than 50 percent of the capacity. Apart from this, the other home appliances product range right from refrigerators, dishwashers, kitchen chimneys, ovens etc are imported. The company is also looking for other categories of products in the upcoming years. Out of these, some can be made locally depending on the scale.
The Indian home appliances market is currently at 8-10 percent growth rate and is going to double up in size in the coming decade. There are plans for designing and developing from India. The company is currently setting up an R&D center in the country towards this end. The plant may come up near Pune.
BSH had come to India in 2010 as a subsidiary of the German home appliances manufacturer BSH Hausgerate GmBH. It has grown by 50 percent in 2015 over 2014 calendar year.