Bengaluru: The Euro 114.3-billion Daimler AG, owner of brands such as Mercedes-Benz cars and Daimler Trucks, has established a new R&D facility in Bangalore that will consolidate its existing operations and add fresh capacity. The facility is its biggest outside the one at its headquarters in Germany.
Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India (MBRDI), which has been in operation since 1996, has set up a 20,000 square meter R&D centre in the city's IT hub of Whitefield, with a capacity to seat 1,800 people. At present the Bangalore facility has 1,060 people. MBRDI operates a smaller satellite facility in Pune, which employs 140 people.
Starting out seventeen years ago with just 10 people, MBRDI has been involved in many areas of Daimler's global R&D work across cars, trucks, buses and vans. These include: component development of parts and modules for the new generation cars; design, development, and modelling of subsystems such as chassis, power train, suspension, interior and exterior components; prototyping, regionalization, and localization; embedded software design, and simulation. MBRDI also overlooks the group's IT engineering, SAP delivery, global and local IT infrastructure and operation services.
"As a global development centre the contribution of MBRDI can be envisaged from the fact that in 2012 alone, the organization filed over 50 patents for innovations in automotive development," said Thomas Weber, member of the board of management, Daimler AG, and head of group research, Mercedes-Benz Cars Development. He added that India was a high potential market for Mercedes-Benz and MBRDI would ensure its development initiatives were in cognizance with the needs of upcoming markets. In 2012, Mercedes- Benz India sold approximately 7,200 units.
Weber added that over the next two years MBRDI would hire 800 people taking the total R&D operations headcount to 2,000. "We are looking forward to a period of robust growth in India and as such, Indian talent pool will continue to play an even more dominant role in the years ahead," said Jens Cattarius, MD and CEO of MBRDI.
MBRDI has taken the leadership role in developing the human body modelling system (HBM), a simulation technology that considers every possible combination of accident variables from biomechanics and the physical properties of human tissues to accident statistics and the physics of crash situations.
"HBM is a key pillar supporting Daimler's vision of accident free driving," said Cattarius. MBRDI has also led the development of seats in Mercedes-Benz's newly launched A-Class and CLA-Class.
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