Rane TRW Steering Systems opens airbag manufacturing plant near Chennai.

Rane TRW Steering Systems Private limited - Occupant Safety Division, a 50:50 joint venture between Rane group and ZF TRW, recently inaugurated its airbag manufacturing plant located adjacent to its seatbelt plant at Singaperumal Koil in Chennai. The plant was inaugurated by Nigel Harris, managing director and president, Ford India.

Both seatbelt and airbag plants, located on the same campus, have around 450 employees.

In India, Rane TRW's Occupant Safety Division, which manufactures seatbelts and airbags, caters to key customers including, Ford India, Renault Nissan, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki India, Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles. The company exports nearly 15 percent of its seatbelts volumes to Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Thailand and other countries.

Harish Lakshman, managing director, Rane TRW, said: 'With the Government of India promoting occupant safety/road safety to significantly reduce fatalities, we expect the auto industry in the country to introduce passive safety technologies to meet these regulations. The commissioning of this new facility demonstrates the company's commitment to support technology evolution in the passenger vehicles. We anticipate exponential growth in the application of frontal airbags over the next decade.'

The airbag plant, which covers an area of 1800 square meters, will assemble driver and passenger airbag modules. The plant will have an installed capacity to produce around 5,00,000 airbags initially with sufficient space to expand as the market grows in the future. Rane TRW is currently working to localize the airbag components to improve its competitiveness in a highly cost conscious market like India.

TOI