The Hirotec Group has invested Rs.40 crore in a new, integrated design and manufacturing facility here. The Japan-based group makes car doors and exhaust systems.
The Indian facility is into automotive hemming systems, and closure (doors, hood and decklid) assembly lines for passenger car manufacturing. Takahiro Hayama, Director and President of Hirotec India, said that the plant, with a built-up area of 7,200 sq. m., had come up on seven acres at Keeranatham here. “We see good growth potential in India in the long-term,” he said. The company had already invested Rs.25 crore in India, and further investment during the next one or two years would depend on the growth of business. It has over 250 employees now, and has the capacity to expand further. Its vendor base in Coimbatore had expanded in the last one-and-a-half years with more than 250 now, he said. According to Katsutoshi Uno, chairman and chief executive officer of Hirotec America, the move to expand the facilities in India was to meet the increasing demand for hemming and assembly fixture solutions of the group.
Hirotec started India operations in 2005 as a joint venture with Coimbatore-based KG Group. It became a 100 per cent subsidiary of Hirotec in 2010. The company was functioning from different locations here, and these would move into the new integrated plant now.
