Future of Engineering

Education level, availability of qualified engineers, quality of engineers, flexibility, cost efficiency of labour when compared to Europe and the US, and the philosophy and the interest of Indian engineers to learn and to look for improving existing designs, not just to copy.

These are the factors that weighed in favour of India when Mann+Hummel (www.mann-hummel.com) of Germany wanted to set up a design and engineering centre. The group, with a history going back to the early 1940s, employs around 10,500 people at 41 locations worldwide. It earned in 2006 a revenue of 1.6 billion euros, about three-quarters of which came from the business with the automotive and the motor spares trade customers.

Speaking about how Indians can benefit from his country, Mann+Hummel executive Mr Wink suggests that if India can manage to create a combination of structured, reliable, planned and organised way of doing business in Germany with the flexibility, motivation and improvisational skills from Indians, then we have a mix of character/working style which will be very successful.