'We cannot compete with Tata's Nano'

Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL) is the first manufacturing unit of Hyundai outside Korea that boasts of near 100 per cent productivity, with robots working in tandem with humans and rolling out 53 cars per hour. In fact, the company's Rs 2,429-crore second unit is fully supported by robots with 88 per cent of the jobs being taken care by machines. The two factory plants in the Chennai unit together now produce about six lakhs cars per annum for both export and domestic consumption.

The success of the Indian unit has taken the parent company by surprise, to the extent that it sends a Korean team every quarter to study its functioning and replicate it in other plants.

Asked about the mega achievements of the lush green facility spread across 562 acres, HMIL's Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer, Han-Woo Park quietly attributes it to the 11,000-strong workforce in the factory. The fact that the soft-spoken Korean, who is in-charge of the day-to-day activities of the Chennai unit , believes in team work was evident when he called in his entire top team for a free-wheeling interview with Sify.com's Deputy Managing Editor K. Sreedevi and Associate Editor M.V. Amarnath. While explaining the company's success story in India, Park makes it clear that the company has no plans to compete with Tata Nano, and asserts that so far, the Indian unit has not been affected either by the rising oil prices or the US meltdown.