By IANS,
Bangalore: IT major Wipro Ltd’s global hydraulics business Tuesday unveiled its aerospace facility in the special economic zone (SEZ) at Devanahalli near the airport on the city’s outskirts.
Set up with an upfront investment of Rs.650 million in a 7.2 acre campus, the country’s first of its kind plant has an installed capacity to manufacture about 2,000 actuators annually for various aerospace applications.
An actuator is a device used to control hydraulic fluid or pneumatic pressure in a mechanical or electronic system and convert this energy into motion.
“Our actuators will have various applications in aircraft, including landing gear, flight control systems, engines and utilities,” Wipro Infrastructure Engineering president Pratik Kumar said on the occasion.
The global actuator systems market is estimated to be around $3 billion.
“Our vision is to build a significant presence in the aerospace and defense market, leveraging on our experience and competence in precision engineering and machining space,” Kumar said.
The company’s engineering division tied up in May 2011 with Spanish firm Compania Espanola de Sistemas Aeronauticos SA, a subsidiary of the European Aerospace and Defence Corporation, EADS, to manufacture precision engineering components.
“The pact involves technology transfer as well as manufacturing aerospace actuators and related precision engineering components by Wipro for CESA,” Kumar said.
The company plans to double the investment over the next six years to expand capacity to about 8,000 actuators per annum and add new product lines in precision manufactured components.
“We have big plans for this business and are in talks with several players to develop multiple product lines as the facility, with end-to-end capabilities from product development, manufacturing to testing, is well positioned to partner global OEMs/tier-Is, which are looking to extend their supply chains to cost-competitive countries like India and to meet their offset obligations,” said engineering business head Sunil Rajagopalan.
The facility will commence its serial production in April.
Wipro chairman Azim Premji, EADS/Airbus vice-president Klaus Richter and Karnataka’s principal secretary (industry) M.N. Vidyashankar were present on the occasion.