In a bid to optimise costs and earn better profits, Maruti Suzuki will soon start offering a number of products based on the same platform.
Maruti Suzuki is India’s biggest automaker and the company sells almost a dozen vehicles in the Indian market. The company’s products are based on different segments across a huge price range and most of them are based on different platforms. The firm has been making good profits each year but company officials have now revealed new plans that they will be incorporating.
First up, Maruti Suzuki is going to embrace the idea of platform sharing. The automaker is going to try its best in making sure that their vehicles share common platforms as much as possible. Right now, the firm uses 8 different platforms for a product line-up that consists of 16 vehicles.
The automaker’s plan is to reduce the number of platforms to just three or four. This will allow the company to optimise production costs and also get better returns on investment. Some changes will be made to Maruti’s assembly line that will enable the use of common parts and the adoption of a modular structure.
Maruti is also working on reducing the product development cycle of new vehicles. Right now, the product development cycle takes place every 8-9 years but Maruti is optimistic that they will reduce it to 5-6 years. In fact, over the next 5 years, the company aims to refurbish its entire line-up of existing models with new products.
The platform-to-model ratio has been in use in overseas markets since a long time while it was unheard of in India until a few years ago. Maruti is now going to invest in new platforms and all of their products will be consolidated within 3 platforms – Mini, A and B. Even other automakers like Toyota and Volkswagen have been spinning off a number of products on a limited number of platforms.
Maruti Suzuki Platforms
– The automaker will reduce the number of platforms
– This will ensure better cost optimisation
– The product development cycle will be reduced
