Allison Transmission is the world’s largest manufacturer of fully automatic transmissions for medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, and is a leader in hybrid-propulsion systems for city buses.
The Allison Transmission India plant located in the automotive belt of Oragadam, near Chennai, is a 100 per cent export-oriented unit (EOU). Started in 2010, this plant manufactures vehicular drive train components for wheeled commercial and defence vehicles. The finished components are exported to other plants in Indianapolis in the US and Hungary, besides catering to the assembly line at Chennai.
In 2013, the Chennai plant started assembly of Allison 1000 and 2000 series fully automatic transmissions which are suited for commercial vehicles with gross weight of upto 16 tons. These highly reliable and durable transmissions are also manufactured at their mother plant in Indianapolis since 1999. These completely customized transmissions are exported to various South-East Asian countries, including China, Japan and Australia, thus contributing a lot to the “Make in India” and “Export from India” programs.
This facility also has a Customization Centre, Parts Distribution Centre and Training Academy. Allison Customization Centers around the world configure transmissions to a specific OEM’s requirements prior to delivery. This reduces their assembly costs and shortens vehicle build times.
Allison Transmission also works with more than 300 OEMs worldwide. The Indian OEMs include Ashok Leyland, Corona, Daimler, JBM, Tata Motors and Veera. A few Indian OEMs are also exporting their trucks and buses fitted with Allison fully automatic transmissions made in India for both commercial and defence vehicles to many African and Asian destinations.
The Allison Chennai plant covering an area of 28 Acres is one of the best manufacturing facilities, equipped with modern machinery, and an excellent shop-floor and talented workforce. Each component and transmission goes through multiple quality processes and testing to ensure that they are defect free. This ensures a reliable, quality and trusted product for which Allison has been known for more than 100 years.
What seems to be working in favor of Allison is the strategic location of its plant close to the Chennai port, the second largest ocean port well connected with some of the other major ports in Asia as well as Europe to which Allison exports its products. This allows easy and quick connectivity of the finished products to customers. For any urgent shipment, Chennai also provides seamless connectivity by air.
To enhance productivity and reliability, many customers worldwide are switching from manual or automated manual transmission (AMT) to fully automatic transmissions. With the growing trend in Indian OEMs exporting completely-built vehicles to other countries, Allison products manufactured in India are likely to contribute to exports.
Allison is highly optimistic of the commercial vehicle industry picking up. Customers and OEMs are likely to demand for a reliable product which will increase their productivity and bring down the overall cost of ownership. As the demand for fully automatic transmissions increases the Chennai plant will play a significant role in the coming years.