Friday, February 02, 2007

Automotive Manufacturing at PSG Tech

PSG College of Technology will host a two-day national conference on `Automotive Manufacturing' on February 16 and 17 at the college premises.

A pre-conference workshop on `Rapid Prototyping' will be held on February 15, Organising Secretary G. Chandramohan, Professor and Head, Department of Automobile Engineering, said here on Friday. He told presspersons that the conference had been planned in association with the Society of Automotive Engineers, India, Southern Section.

It would deal with matters of manufacturing, quality, computer integrated manufacturing assembly and automation, automotive materials and robotics for automotive industries.

Specific topics like lean manufacturing, quality systems, sheet metal forming, sensors and controls would also be dealt with.

Inauguration


R. Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, would inaugurate the conference.

Chief Executive Officers and managers of industries, engineers from various organisations and faculty and students from colleges would participate.

Technical sessions and paper presentations would form part of the deliberations.

The conference also invited papers from students of engineering colleges on topics of lean manufacturing, nano fabrication and materials for manufacturing.

The papers received thus would be evaluated as a contest.

A number of experts from academia and the industry from Coimbatore and other parts of the State would be resource persons at the conference.

R. Mahadevan, Director of India Pistons would address the valediction on February 17.

For further information on the conference and workshop, Prof. Chandramohan could be contacted on 94437-23728. Details could also be accessed on the net at www.psgtech.edu

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Wipro plans for 4000 seat facility in Coimbatore

Wipro Technologies is looking at more acquisitions this year. According to Mr Pratik Kumar, Executive Vice-President— Human Resources, the company is looking at `bigger acquisitions' this year. Last year, it acquired seven small and medium-sized companies; it plans to keep the momentum up this year too, he said.

Apart from acquisitions, the company also has plans to increase its capacity in Chennai. The company is investing over Rs 300 crore to add about 9,000 seats this year across its various facilities in Chennai, besides a new facility in Coimbatore.

Wipro's existing 4,500-seat capacity at Sholinganallur would see 7,500 more seats added this year. The company has plans to scale up this 102-acre centre to house 18,000 seats in future, said Dr Chandrasekar Dharuman, Vice-President and Location Head, Wipro Technologies. The company is also doubling head count to 300 employees at its Pallikaranai facility in Chennai. It also has another office in Chennai through the acquisition of financial services firm mPower Inc.

At a press conference today, the company also announced plans to commence construction of its facilities at Mahindra City (near Chennai) and Coimbatore. The 95-acre plot in Mahindra Tech city will have about 1,000 seats (initially) built this year. A seven-acre plot in Coimbatore capable of housing a 4,000-seat facility would also start construction this year, said Mr Kumar.


Source: Moneycontrol.com

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Airport officials clarify land acquistion rumours

There is no move to acquire 300 acres for the expansion of the Coimbatore Airport, according to Airport Authority of India (AAI) sources.

The sources said that a technical proposal forwarded by them to the AAI head quarters had mentioned the required extent of land. After approving the plan the Union Government would take it up with the State Government.

The sources said that in the first phase of expansion from 7,500 ft to 8,500 ft no habitations were disturbed. In the second phase, wherein the AAI had planned to expand the runway to 9,700 ft, 20 acres were sought and that too did not involve even a single habitation.

In both the phases of expansion, no residential area was disturbed. Even technically the runway alignment was only towards vacant land, they said.

Vested interests


It was real estate agents/brokers and those vested interests deliberately creating panic among the residents in a bid to bring down the prices of land and properties around the airport, sources added.

The District Collector had already announced that neither the airport authorities nor the Government had sought land in this connection.

K. Subbarayan, MP, said that certain groups were spreading rumours that land and houses right from Karunanidhi Nagar to GKR Nagar would be acquired for expanding the Coimbatore Airport. The State Government at no point of time had stated that it had plans to acquire colonies and habitations for any project.

He said that he would stand by the residents if at all there was any move to acquire the land.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Coimbatore Airport Expansion Plan faces resistance

Opposing the proposed move to acquire about 300 acres of land for Coimbatore Airport expansion, over 800 residents of that area today laid near siege to the District Collectorate.

The residents, a large number of them being women, submitted a memorandum to Collector Neeraj Mittal, in which they appealed to stop the move as 5,000 people were likely to be rendered homeless, besides losing agricultural land.

Claiming that there was no information about the acquisition of land, sources close to Mittal said the administration, for that matter, cannot do much about the issue, since it was related to the Centre.

According to the residents, some Airport officials had last month specifically told some people that about 350 acres of land would be acquired for expansion.

The residents have issued a warning that they would intensify their agitation if the proposal was not dropped, police said.



Source: The Hindu

Suzlon Energy to invest in Coimbatore

Hansen Transmissions International N V, Belgium, a step-down subsidiary of Suzlon Energy, is planning to set up a gearbox factory with an estimated investment of $220 million (Rs 980 crore) near Coimbatore.According to a release issued by Sulzon to the BSE today, the unit is expected to be operational by the end of 2008. "It is estimated that the factory will reach full production capacity by early 2010 with an output of 1,500-2,000 gearboxes per annum," the release added.Suzlon Energy has appointed Andre Horbach as global chief executive officer of the group effective January 25, 2007. He will operate from the global group management company Suzlon Energy B/V, Netherlands.Suzlon Energy, in another release issued to the BSE today, said the company has an order book position of Rs 7,716.23 crore including Rs 1,544.31 crore domestic orders and Rs 6,171.93 crore export orders."The domestic order book position includes an order received from British Petroleum for supply of 32 units of 1.25 MW turbines, aggregating to 40 MW, at Dhule, Maharashtra," the release added.

Source: Bussiness Standard