Production commences at Royal Enfield’s Oragadam facility

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Popular Indian bike maker Royal Enfield today started commercial production from its new manufacturing facility at Oragadam, Tamil Nadu. Spread over 50 acres, the Oragadam plant starts with an installed production capacity of 150,000 units in the first phase. An initial investment of Rs 150 crores has been made towards construction of this facility that will produce the full range of Royal Enfield motorcycles.

Rolling out the first motorcycle from the Oragadam facility, Mr Siddhartha Lal, MD & CEO, Eicher Motors Ltd. said, “At Royal Enfield we have recorded a major milestone today with this plant at Oragadam becoming operational. Royal Enfield has witnessed a huge surge in demand in the recent past, recording a growth of over 50% for each of the last two years. We have been extremely successful in stretching the capacity of our existing 60 year old plant to record levels – achieving production of over 12,000 motorcycles in the month of March 2013. Yet the demand for our motorcycles has continued to outpace the supply. Therefore we have conceived of this new facility on a much larger tract of land and created a master-plan that can take the eventual production here to over 500,000 per year. With the speedy execution of the first phase of the plan, we have revised our production target upwards in 2013 – to 175,000 motorcycles from both plants. However, even as we start commercial production today, we have already begun working on the second phase of expansion at Oragadam, which will further increase the production capacity to 250,000 motorcycles in 2014. With this new facility, we now have the ability to scale our production quantity quickly in response to market demand.”

“This new plant has been benchmarked to achieve the highest level of quality and productivity. We have re-tooled many of the parts that make up our motorcycles – so that they are of exacting accuracy and finish. The substrate quality of the sheet metal parts, for example, is now at par with the best in the world; when these parts undergo the world-leading CED and paint process here at Oragadam – they will have a surface finish and life of the highest quality”, he further added.

Talking about Royal Enfield’s future plans Mr Siddhartha Lal said, “The ability to increase capacity fast and superior quality of motorcycles is a crucial step for Royal Enfield towards meeting our global ambitions. While we are adding new models and new dealerships in the Indian market which is fuelling our growth, we are also working on building our presence globally. Higher investments into brand and distribution, as well as new products that are very appealing to international markets are going to be key for us to achieve global leadership in the mid-size motorcycle category.”

The Oragadam facility should see waiting period for RE bikes, which enjoy a cult status in India, become considerably shorter. 

Mr Siddhartha Lal, MD & CEO Eicher Motors Ltd on the first bike-Royal Enfield-Desert Storm rolled out from Oragadam Plant Mr Siddhartha Lal, MD & CEO Eicher Motors Ltd rolling out the first bike-Royal Enfield-Desert Storm from Oragadam Plant Mr Siddhartha Lal, MD & CEO Eicher Motors Ltd2

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