Daimler rolls out FUSO trucks from Chennai as a part of its Asian strategy

Chennai: Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Pvt. Ltd. (DICV), a 100% wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler AG, Stuttgart, Germany along with Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, Japan (MFTBC) , a Daimler Company, launched its strategic new products under the brand ‘FUSO’, manufactured at DICV’s manufacturing plant at Oragadam, near Chennai.

The new FUSO trucks are based on the ‘Daimler Trucks Technical Platforms’ and will be exported to important markets in Asia & Africa. This range provides the FUSO brand fresh impetus in addressing product segments that were not available earlier.

Albert Kirchmann – Head – Daimler Trucks Asia and President & CEO, MFTBC, said that, “Today is an exciting moment for us. The New Asia Business Model will enable us to unlock full potential among MFTBC and DICV, and we are already bringing strategies into reality. We have done our homework in repositioning our MFTBC operations, ramping up DICV business, and establishing presence of the BharatBenz brand in India. Coming out of the unimaginable 2011 earthquake crisis in Japan, we have achieved a record operational result in 2012. Now, with the strategic FUSO truck ready for launch for export outside of India, our growth story ‘FUSO 2015’ is at full speed ahead.”

Marc Llistosella, Managing Director and CEO - DICV, said: “Over the last 4 years DICV has made clear promises to deliver the most-reliable and cost-efficient trucks to the Indian trucker and we have delivered on all of them. The launch of FUSO trucks from our manufacturing facility at Chennai is a clear demonstration of the same exacting quality standards practised by Daimler facilities around the world.

The export potential of DICV adds strength to our business plan while also encouraging the possibility of higher sourcing from the Indian suppliers”.

Kai-Uwe Seidenfuss, Senior Vice President - Sales and After Sales, MFTBC, said, “Our new lineup of fuel-efficient, state-of-the-art FUSO trucks will fill the growing customer demand in Asia and Africa, thus adding further growth for Daimler Trucks Asia. Moving ahead, we will supply a total of 15 export markets starting with Sri Lanka in June 2013 followed by other select markets.”

The FUSO trucks range manufactured at DICV‘s Oragadam plant comprise 5 models spanning Medium/Heavy-duty (25 – 49 tonnes referred to as ‘FJ’, ‘FO’ & ‘FZ’) and Light/Medium-duty (9 – 16 tonnes referred to as ‘FA’ & ‘FI’). These trucks will be exported and sold through the FUSO Network to 15 markets in Asia and Africa like Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique Mauritius and the Seychelles.  The first launch markets will be Sri Lanka in June 2013, followed by Bangladesh, Zambia, Kenya and Brunei later this year.  Further markets are currently evaluated and will be communicated at a later time.

Daimler Truck’s ‘Asia Business Model’ clearly paves the way for better synchronisation of its available strengths. While the Indian and Japanese markets remain Trucks Asia’s important focus markets, the global economy shows significant growth potential shifting to Asia and its surrounding developing markets like Africa. The new Asia Business Model is designed to address these trends and strengthen Trucks Asia operations for the mid- to long-term.

Focus Areas:

1.      Integrated Asia product portfolio
Strong focus will be placed on an integrated Trucks Asia product portfolio which will offer a wider choice to our customers. The new strategic FUSO trucks unveiled today is one successful example of short-term projects underway between DICV and MFTBC.

2.      Asia R&D network leveraging DICV and Mercedes-Benz Research & Development India (MBRDI) operations
An integrated R&D approach will enable Trucks Asia, to leverage Indian cost-efficiency while providing DICV access to MFTBC R&D knowhow and capacity, and vice versa. The global Daimler Trucks Product Engineering organization under one global head will ensure stronger synergy effects as already proven by rest of the Daimler Trucks integrated matrix organization.

3.      Joint procurement for MFTBC and DICV – full leverage of DICV supplier base
Great synergies are targeted under the newly aligned Trucks Asia operations from leveraging DICV's supplier base. The tried and tested Supplier base in India through the experience of creating BharatBenz trucks enables the advantage for a coordinated procurement and supplier management function to ensure greater cost-efficiencies while maintaining high quality

Trucks Asia Kawasaki and Chennai production hubs
Trucks Asia under the new Asia Business Model is moving towards an optimized Asia footprint with two major production hubs in Kawasaki, Japan, and Chennai, India. The Kawasaki factory is positioned as the central completely-built-up and knocked-down vehicles production hub especially in terms of delivering the highest standards to meet ever demanding customer requirements in Japan & international markets. The Chennai plant will concentrate on truck deliveries of Mercedes-Benz and BharatBenz trucks for India and for export of FUSO trucks for select markets in Asia and Africa, thus, complementing Kawasaki hub capacity and the traditional product range.