Lightweighting the
heavyweights Fleetguard Filters is one of Asia’s leading manufacturers of heavy-duty industrial filters. The company is part of the international Cummins Group, founded in 1919 in Indiana, USA. Philip Yorke reports on the latest developments at Fleetguard India and its move away from metal assemblies to speciality plastics for its automotive oil and fuel filtration products.
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ummins began its operations in India in 1962 in a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group. Today the Cummins Group has a turnover of more than US$20.4 billion worldwide. Fleetguard Filters is an important affiliate of Cummins with a turnover in excess of $2.0 billion and around 10,000 employees in India. It is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that supplies state-of-the-art products to the world’s leading automotive and industrial engine and equipment manufacturers. Fleetguard operates six modern manufacturing plants in India. These are strategi48 Industry Europe
cally located at Hosur, Jamshedpur, Pune and Sitarganj. It also manufactures coolants and other chemical products for a broad range of industrial applications in the marine, agriculture, mining, construction and automotive sectors. The Cummins Group conducts a significant proportion of its R&D in India at the Cummins Research and Technology Centre, established in Pune in 2003. Furthermore, it is building an advanced technical centre in Pune, which will house more than 2000 engineers. The Cummins operation in India has also made
