Honda's diesel engine plant in Greater Noida visited

Bertrand D'souza Updated: September 06, 2013, 05:49 PM IST

The Honda Amaze's engine is assembled at the Honda facility at Tapukara in Rajasthan as well as the mother plant at Greater Noida. Essentially, the transmission is put together at Tapukara inside a sterile room called mission control. From here it is sent to Greater Noida where it is mated to the Amaze engine.

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Mission control assembles around 440 transmissions daily after a series of checks and tests to ensure quality is maintained at very high standards. About 150 people are employed on mission control, working in two shifts to help meet the high market demands for the Amaze. The manual transmission is the only transmission to be assembled here in India while the automatic is still imported. Currently the Amaze has garnered over 25000 bookings making it one of the fastest moving entry sedans to come into the market in a very long time.

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At the main plant in Greater Noida, the transmission and the engine come together before it gets strapped into the Amaze. In a semi-automated process, two shifts work to build the Amaze and the Brio as well as the City. The engine shop is another carefully monitored area where each and every process of the engine build is attended to in great detail. Even we had to put on gloves, for instance, before handling components such as the piston or crankshaft. The rest of the process though is almost like any other automotive plant anywhere in the world - noisy and busy!

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In the future, a lot of the manufacturing processes will shift to the Tapukara facility where, among other cars, the forthcoming Jazz and the multi-utility vehicle will be manufactured. This facility will also have a large forging section so that critical components such as pistons, connecting rods and crankpins can be manufactured in-house. Fifteen years after Honda first started its journey in India the new diesel powered Amaze may be having an amazing journey but it's the hope that it has brought back to Honda that's making both customers and the hundreds working at the plants smile.

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