A senior executive at Rockwell Automation has mentioned considering the expansion of its technology workforce and the establishment of additional factories in India to enhance manufacturing. This announcement follows closely on the heels of their recent unveiling of plans to build a plant in Tamil Nadu, located in southern India.
Having completed 40 years of operations in India in 2023, the industrial automation equipment manufacturer boasts several manufacturing giants among its clientele, including Reliance Industries, Mahindra Group, and MRF. "We see India as a technology hub for our current and future product development, hardware, and software," Rockwell Asia Pacific Regional President Scott Wooldridge said.
Rockwell, presently with a workforce of 4,500 individuals, predominantly stationed in Noida, Pune, and Bengaluru, aims to intensify its emphasis on hardware and software product development. To achieve this, the company intends to augment its talent pool by recruiting additional personnel for its technology centers. "We'd continue to expand at a similar rate to what we've expanded the last five or six years, where we went from 500 to 3,500", Wooldridge said.
Rockwell's strategy coincides with a period when major Indian IT firms are exercising caution in their hiring processes, prompted by clients reducing expenditures and delaying projects amid macroeconomic difficulties. Just last week, Rockwell, known for its products utilized across various manufacturing sectors such as tire-making machinery and vaccine production lines, announced its intention to establish a factory in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Rockwell intends to inaugurate additional factories in India, leveraging the country's appeal to global manufacturers seeking to diversify their production locations beyond China. "We see (the Chennai plant) as a start of a manufacturing campus strategy. We're looking for the opportunity to build more manufacturing capacity and move more products to India", Woolridge said.