Daimler's Mercedes-Benz has marked 25 years of assembling cars in India.
Initial production in 1994 was in a Tata Motors (Telco) factory but Mercedes-Benz India eventually built its own plant on 100 acres in Chakan, Pune, in 2009.
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Nine models are now built under one roof C-Class, E-Class and S-Class sedan, the CLA Coupe, Maybach S-Class and GLA, GLC, GLE and GLS SUVs.
The plant has virtual reality and other digital manufacturing technology which eventually will be in other assembly plants worldwide.
The Chakan plant employs 730 people and M-B India claims to be both the largest luxury car maker (BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and other rivals also have local factories) and segment leader for January-September this year.
The nine local models are produced on flexible lines.
Daimler praises Indian workers for their know-how and willingness to both train and assist at at other Daimler manufacturing plants to which they provide series production ramp-up and trainer teams.
"The plant in India serves a very important function, especially when a new local assembly facility or lines are set up," the automaker said.
Digital dashboards are used for management reviews and are also on the manufacturing floor, on the way to a paperless factory.
Together with the Mercedes-Benz quality management assurance system Quality Live and other digital tools, it will be integrated into the future digital platform MO360 to be rolled out globally by 2020. MO is short for Mercedes-Benz Operations and 360 describes the overall connectivity in the production network to ensure quality and efficiency.
Augmented and Virtual Reality started with body shop training and will now be introduced to other local Mercedes assembly plants worldwide.
Training includes classes in foreign languages as required.
