Visit at Bajaj Auto Limited and Britannia

Visit at Bajaj Auto Limited 

          Time for  much awaited industrial visit finally arrived and it was 21^stSeptember  when we started  our maiden trip to Pantnagar. We started the journey in the morning and it took around nine hours to reach GB Pantnagar university guest house. After lunch we visited Bajaj Auto at 3 PM where we were warmly welcomed by Mr Ashutosh Sharma (Senior Manager). Bajaj Auto Limited is an Indian motorized vehicle-producing company.It is world’s third-largest manufacturer of motorcycles and second-largest in India. It is based in Pune (Maharashtra), with plants in Akurdi and Chakan (near Pune), Waluj and Pantnagar inUttaranchal. Bajaj Auto Ltd, had started its 4th plant in the year 2007 at SIDCUL (Pantnagar) which now manufactures two brands of motorcycles (Platina and Discover) which mostly cater to the demands of domestic market. They have 17 vendors and all of them are located nearby. They outsource machinery and have four assembly lines which operate in two shifts with 950 manpower, manufacturing 6000 vehicles per day and targeting 1.5 Lakh vehicles per month. The efficiency of the plant is 96%. Bajaj is the top exporter of bike in India, exporting to more than 40 countries around the world.

          Most of the vendors of Bajaj are nearby and Bajaj Auto operates cohesively with them in every aspect. They shared with us various issues they face related to human resources and the ways like Employee engagement, job rotation etc. which are used to tackle these issues. Various sporting events are organized to keep the morale of the employees high. Rewards and recognitions are given to the employees who demonstrate high quality at work. There are two assembly line in Pantnagar plant and each assembly line demonstrates the lifecycle from the chassis to a finished motorcycle. Furthermore, they follow the JIT(Just in Time) philosophy to reduce manufacturing costs, improve quality, and reduce changeover times.Towards the end, we had a healthy discussion with the Senior Manager, Mr. Ashutosh Sharma. He enlightened us about the business strategies of the company in the past and in the coming future and patiently answered the queries we had from the management point of view. As we bid adieu to Bajaj, he expressed his will to strengthen the relationship with DoMS, IIT Roorkee in the times to come.

Visit at Britania Industries Limited
   
       Next, we visited Britannia Ltd in SIDCUL Rudrapur. We were welcomed by Mr. Dhirendra Shrivastava, Safety Officer. Industries Limited is an Indian food-products corporation based in Kolkata, India.Interestingly, it was established in 1892, with an investment of Rs. 295.Now there are total 35 working units of Britannia,out of which two are located abroad. Nusli Wadia is the current chairman of Britannia Industries Limited.Other plants are located in Pantnagar, Chennai, Mumbai, Hajipur and Khurda. In 2005 Britannia Industries started new biscuit manufacturing plant at Rudrapur in Uttaranchal. Students were taken through the entire process of biscuit manufacturing, which consists of the steps shown below :-

Pre-mixing
This is the process where all the ingredients are put together in the right proportions for the dough formation.Major ingredients are wheat,sugar,butter, water and vegetable oil.

Moulding These ingredients are fed into mixers where mixing is done and dough is prepared for moulding.

Forming
In the forming section the dough is passed through several rolls to form sheets .These sheets are then converted into one uniform sheet of desired thickness.

Baking
Wet dough pieces of desired weight and shape are then passed on to oven band through a swivel panel web.

Cooling
Cooling is the most important of all the processes .When biscuits come out of the oven, the temperature of the biscuit is around 75-90 deg C .These biscuits are cooled by letting them travel a distance of 1.5 times the baking time.

Packing
Biscuits are fed into packing machines in continuous stacks with the help of auto feeders which is achieved through a stacker which arranges biscuits into uniform stacks.

Dispatch
Packed biscuits are then assembled in warehouses from where they are further dispatched to the retailers. In dispatch section proper safety measures are to be considered.

          It was really a wonderful experience to see an automatic assembly line which requires very less manpower. Also, it was refreshing to see that high levels of quality and hygine were maintained at every step of the process. Moreover stress was given on various fire safety issues which are an essential part of food processing industry. At last, we had a healthy discussion with Mr. Dhirendra Srivastava regarding various processes used in manufacturing as well as safety measures.Both visits have added practical knowledge to our academics and we hope to have further such experiences in future.

Saurabh Paul

Ankit Katiyar