Car Design Outsourcing The Next Gold Rush

Car Design Outsourcing The Next Gold Rush
Next year the US alone will see the launch of 50 new cars, and parts of these cars will be designed in India through outsourcing of engineering drawings.

Carmakers in the US are increasingly facing a major challenge in terms of designing more complex cars than ever before, at far lower costs but faster pace.

"The pressure on engineering will be enormous, and at the same time to do it more efficiently and at lower costs," Mr Mahesh Lunani, partner in the US-based management consulting firm, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, told Business Line.

To cope with such demands, US automakers are planning to shift more engineering work to suppliers, Mr Lunani, who has co-authored a study called Automotive Engineering-2010: Achieving more from less, said.

He also said that India was becoming the preferred destination for automakers to send their engineering drawings to companies. "Savings from such exercise is between 10 per cent and 30 per cent," said Mr Lunani.

Commenting on the study, an industry veteran, Mr Aravind Melligeri, President of Quest Engineering & Software Technologies - which has been part of the development of passenger cars in the US - said that while it takes $1 million to carry out such work in India, the same kind of work would cost the company at least three times more.

Mr Lunani said that b