Cross functional team under Girish Wagh studied the sub-4 tonne market and submitted its recommendation for developing a small truck

Sceptics in Tata Motors??? management asked why they should manufacture a small, less than one tonne payload truck that did not exist in the market till then instead of a 3-wheeler.

But Ratan Tata???s interest in the project gets it going

But no engine was available anywhere in the world that suited the company???s requirement

Development team decided to make a 2-cylinder version of the 4-cylinder Tata Indica engine: a bold decision as no one had ever done this before

The carmaker adopted, for the first time, a new product development process designed by Warwick Manufacturing Group

The process divided product development into seven stages. Every stage had a gateway before the development passed into the next stage

The process failed more than once and in one instance, the concept had to be re-worked to meet costs parameters

Meanwhile, the company struggled to keep vehicle costs at planned levels as commodity prices rose

Tata Motors outsourced a larger share of product development and thus benefited from suppliers innovation prowess

Tata Ace was developed on time and at the cost it was originally envisaged (after factoring in inflation)