Godrej to help halve time taken to assemble rail coaches

Diversified group Godrej on Thursday announced a partnership with Indian Railways to help halve the time taken to assemble a coach to 12 hours and is eyeing a Rs 100 crore revenue from the industrial machines segment in next three years.

Godrej Tooling, an arm of the group's flagship Godrej & Boyce, will be designing and developing the universal coach assembly station as an indigenous solution for coach assembly fabrication in the Marathwada Railcoach Factory at Latur in Maharashtra, according to a statement.

The universal coach assembly station will cut the time it takes to assemble a coach from 24 hours to 12 hours, it added.

The company said it is eyeing a revenue of Rs 100 crore from the industrial machines line of business in the next three years.

Godrej & Boyce's partnership with Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd began in 2019 with the latter awarding Godrej Tooling, the project of developing the universal shell body assembly fixture for the then upcoming Marathwada Railcoach Factory at Latur, the statement said.

This fixture greatly benefits the Indian Railways by deskilling operations, enhancing production, and increasing productivity of the line by 100 per cent, it added.

The integration of the auto welder setup makes it capable of welding different variants of coaches like EMU, MEMU and LHB type coaches through flexibility in clamping, resting level pads and slides, it explained.

"Our team carried out extensive studies of the current manufacturing processes which included in-depth interactions with the factory personnel at the Integrated Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai. This helped us design the flexible Universal Coach Assembly station with an automated welding arrangement which can accommodate multiple coach variants," Godrej Tooling's head of business Pankaj Abhyankar said.

Godrej Tooling, through its Industrial Machines (IM) line of business, provides specialised solutions, including automation of jigs & fixtures, material handling, welding and robotics for a wide range of manufacturing activities for improving productivity in Indian Railways and metro rail sectors.

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