Delcam Asian Technical Summit 2010 – Tata Motors Visit

Yesterday I arrived in Pune to attend Delcam’s Asian Technical Summit. This is my first ever Delcam event and at the airport itself I got the idea that this company is a little different. There were Delcam employees waiting to welcome me at the airport and they greeted me with a rose. I joked on Twitter that I was expecting a massage at the hotel.

Today Delcam took us to Tata Motors, one of India’s largest auto manufacturers. As we were driving to the factory we were greeted by this billboard on the road.

And to top it off when we passed by the Delcam office in Pune, we were pleasantly amazed by this sight – Delcam employees waving Delcam flags as our bus rolled on. Like I said, this company is a little different.

Notice the people with flags on the roof top

At Tata Motors we were shown the tooling section where we saw some real big CNC machines cutting some really big dies. Some of these machines were using the output from PowerMILL, Delcam’s top selling CAM product. Tata Motors doesn’t just build dies for itself. It also builds dies for Jaquar, Honda, Fiat, GM, Toyota and Ford, among other manufacturers.

Later were were taken to the assembly line of the passenger car division. Apparently, it takes about 8 hours to assemble a car from its individual parts. This includes welding together individual sheet metal components and painting as well. After the body shell is welded and painted it takes 3 hours to roll the car across the finish line. Yes, there is a finish line and a car rolls across it every 2 minutes. Amazing stuff.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures for most of the tour of the Tata Motors plant. Here are a few pictures that I did manage to take.

Today Tata Motors planned to roll out 814 cars

With Al Dean from DEVELOP3D

A 1928 Silver Ghost vintage car

Tata Nano – the world’s cheapest car