Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Limited (RBEI), the engineering and software subsidiary of Bosch in India, has inaugurated a state-of-the-art ECU Reliability Testing Centre at Coimbatore. This new facility will be used for conducting reliability tests including accelerated life time tests on automotive products and components. It will be also used to test products and components from industrial, building and consumer goods domains.
The new facility is in line with RBEI’s plans to offer complete product development solutions to its customers. While RBEI already has design capabilities, the testing facility helps engineers test and understand all possible failures that may occur in the field thereby allowing them to complete the product development lifecycle and offer a better product to its customers.
The Reliability Testing Centre at Coimbatore is the second such hi-tech facility by RBEI in the last 18 months and the first being in Naganathapura, Bangalore which was inaugurated in August 2009. The combined investment in both these facilities is upwards of Rs. 100 crore.
Speaking at the launch in Coimbatore Vijay Ratnaparkhe, President, Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, mentioned, “At RBEI, it has always been our endeavour to offer the best quality product to our customers. With this new testing facility we will be able to cover the entire span of the product development lifecycle from conceptualisation to design to testing, thereby allowing us to deliver best-in-class product to our customers.
Klaus Maeder, Senior Vice President Engineering – Electronic Control Unit (ECU), Robert Bosch GmbH, inaugurated the hi-tech center. He said, “We want to strengthen our presence in India, and especially in a talent center like Coimbatore. The passion for automotive engineering and high-end technology is very strong here.”
The new facility will source talent from Coimbatore and surrounding areas, thereby offering them an exposure to state-of-the art equipment and allowing them to play a part in developing world-class products.
“There is no dearth of good quality talent in and around Coimbatore; all they require is an opportunity to demonstrate their skills and a platform to hone it further. While RBEI will benefit from this talent-pool, we are also certain that facilities like these will go that much further in promoting and nurturing local talent, thereby benefiting the local community,” said Venugopal R., Coimbatore centre head.
The new facility is equipped to test and localise a whole range of automotive and non-automotive components. In the automotive electronics segment, the lab would be able to test over 80 Electronic Control Units (ECUs) including
Engine Management ECUs, Transmission Control Units, Airbag Control Units, electronically driven Window Lifter, etc. relevant to international standards like AEC Q100, IEC 60068, ISO 16750, SAE J1879, J2334, VDA Volume 3 etc. These standards define a subset of requirements and tests to ensure the reliability of automotive components.
While the international standards are mainly based on experiences from
European, American and Japanese markets, special Indian conditions need to be addressed additionally. Based on the needs of the local emerging markets, the reliability engineers will be able to use their technical knowledge for adapting and extending the tests to be performed specially for Indian conditions, thus allowing a greater degree of localisation.