India – The dedicated facility, which cost €36m ($38.5m), is the supplier’s first of this type in the country and will serve Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), Ford and Tata. The plant has started to manufacture previous series and will enter full production in May this year.
“The installation of a technology such as hot stamping is synonymous with the confidence our company has in a very dynamic market such as India’s, in which regulatory changes aiming to improve the safety of vehicles in case of collision will demand new solutions from manufacturers and suppliers,” commented Francisco Riberas, chairman and CEO of Gestamp.
Loire Gestamp, the subsidiary which specialises in the design and manufacture of press lines, has installed a hot-stamping line with a 1,200-ton press incorporating automatic connections for tool changes, thermal imagers and a monitoring system. The plant will have a workforce of 130 people in 2017.
Gestamp arrived in India in 2008 and works with Ford, Volkswagen, Skoda, Renault, Nissan and FCA there. The company is present in 20 countries, with 96 plants and 70 hot-stamping lines; a further nine factories are under construction. There are also 12 R&D centres worldwide. Its global workforce totals around 34,000.
