Greaves Cotton has been in the business of moving people and cargo by supporting powertrain requirements of three-wheeler OEMs besides catering to the needs of stationary engines, the agricultural sector and other industrial applications. With electric mobility moving to centre-stage in both two and three-wheeler segments and its intent to move closer to the consumers, the company, about four years ago, embarked on a journey to support electric mobility solutions in last-mile mobility.
Today, the company has three fundamental businesses - Greaves Engines, Greaves Retail and Greaves Electric Mobility and two enabler businesses - Greaves Finance (for EV finance) and Greaves Technologies - - to support all the three verticals.
Engines
About four years ago, over 70% of the company’s business was to b2b, with diesel as the mainstay and limited to a couple of customers. Today, its engines business has been diversified into auto (diesel, CNG and electric) and non-auto – supplying to construction, marine, genset, defence and farm applications.
Retail
Alongside, the company has also started Greaves Retail vertical, which transformed the company from selling just its engines and spares to multi-brand spares through 7,000 plus outlets and offer services for 2/3-wheelers pan India with 12,000 plus mechanics in its fold. Besides, it began selling a wide range of electric 2/3-wheelers through Auto eV Mart.
E-mobility
A string of acquisitions transformed the company into the groove setting its growth path intact. Under Greaves Electric Mobility, it has the brand Ampere, making two-wheelers; e-rickshaws are made under the ELE brand, while e3W is under the Teja brand.
Talking about the strategy, Nagesh A Basavanhalli, Managing Director and Group CEO, Greaves Cotton Ltd, said, “We are going to go through in steps, but we will be one step ahead of the demand.”
The Ampere plant that makes about 120,000 e2Ws annually will go up to 250,000 by April this year. The basic infrastructure has already been created to churn out one million units, and it needs only add additional conveyor lines. This is a scale business, and the company is confident that capacity will not be an issue at all, he said.
Fuel Agnostic
The company’s strategy is clear – it wants to be fuel-agnostic, giving customers the choice of fuel in 3Ws.
The E-rickshaw, which is popular in North and East, as it replaced the traditional cycle rickshaws by doubling the income.
At the bottom of the pyramid, the company has E-rickshaw, and above is the e3W and IC engines through the acquisition of MLR and e2W on top.
According to Basavanahalli, Ampere will be its e2W brand, while ELE will be the E-rickshaw, while E-Pro will e3W and Teja for the IC engines. ELE will continue its manufacturing operations in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, while E-Pro and Teja will be manufactured in Hyderabad. Ampere will churn out e2Ws from its plant in Ranipet, about 120km southwest of Chennai.
Basavanahalli is clear that the brand Ampere is more associated with millennials and GenZ, and they may not even visit the showroom if it has e-rickshaws and e3W co-exist. Therefore, he said it will maintain separate brands for each vehicle segment.
The company will be spending about INR 100 crore next fiscal on capital expenditure, which will be towards the development of components as well as expanding production volume. This exercise will enhance the localisation levels in the products, he said.
Credit rating agency India Rating in its latest report, said Greaves Cotton is well-positioned to benefit from this industry growth, led by a) its acquisition of Ampere, which held around 14% market share in the e-2W segment in FY21(FY20: 12%), b) new launches in the high-speed category, c) the large capacity expansion planned to manage competition, and d) the expansion into the e3W space through Bestway Agencies and MLR Auto.
Energising e2W Facility
At the shop floor of the Ranipet facility, currently, there is only one assembly line with 32 stations, which can produce 1.2 lakh units in a shift. The assembly line starts with a trolley holding kits to assemble the e-bikes, running parallelly along the conveyor. Working on the Kanban concept, the kit system ensures that all the parts are assembled by the associates, i.e. the kit will be empty when the vehicle is assembled. Some aggregates come directly to the line. At present, 70% of the assembly line is manned by women drawn from ITIs, with a few from engineering colleges.
Currently, the assembly line runs on a 120 seconds-cycle; 225 vehicles are manufactured in 450 minutes of a shift. However, the existing line is designed to churn out 400 vehicles per shift in a day. Therefore, the current operator density is 2.3 per station. At station numbers 12 and 21, in-process inspection and correction take place, which prevents defective vehicles rollout of the assembly line.
Buyer & Seller
The shopfloor follows buyer – seller concept in which the associate stationed at a particular station is a buyer for the preceding station and a seller for the following station. Therefore, it is his or her responsibility to buy the right product and sell it in the same fashion. This concept ensures quality product rolling out of the assembly plant.
At present, the plant has a general assembly line. Plans are to add a welding shop and paint shop in the immediate future and a battery shop a little later.
The upcoming second assembly line will have more automation with an MES – manufacturing execution system, which connects every part and torque to the central server. This helps in going back to the genesis in case of any complaint.
Basavanahalli said that though the manufacturing plants and the brands remain independent, the company will leverage the supply chain to optimise cost through economies of scale.