How your shiny new Dzire is made

Maruti Suzuki took us around their production facility in Manesar today to show us how the new Dzire is built. Now, let me throw some figures at you. Maruti Suzuki rolls out a car every ten seconds, and their collective output from the Manesar and Gurgaon factory allows them to roll out 5800 cars in a span of just 16 hours. So now you know how excited we were to step into this facility. Here are some of the processes that go into making India’s most successful compact sedan.

We first walked through the production line that has the press shop where automated machines are used to press the high tensile steel to make the body panels and the doors. From there, we moved through the weld shop that uses high precision robots and welding guns to spot weld and tailor weld these steel sections of the body together. 

Since the production line is capable of putting together the Swift, new Dzire and Ciaz, you will find the machines quickly and automatically shifting the holding points as each of these car’s chassis have a different design. This is also where we caught the new Dzire’s HEARTECT platform being welded and you can see the robots busy with the job at hand, and swiftly getting the chassis welded. It is then lifted by hydraulic equipment which then takes it through the next process.

As we were passing over another section of the production line-up, we had the chance to get an eagle-eye’s perspective of where the body meets the chassis. In this shot, you will catch a glimpse of how the robots conduct welds to mate the body metal with the chassis. It is after this process that the doors find their way on to this body-chassis combo, and from here it is reeled into the paint shop for some fresh coat of colours. 

Our pictures now depict a newly painted Dzire on the shop floor, however, just before this the doors were removed (after the painting process) to allow the door trim to be fitted on it in a separate assembly line. Now it is time for the components to come on, and in this picture you can see the technicians fitting the head lamps on to the new Dzire. 

In this shot you can see how the shop floor technicians fit the dashboard on to the new Dzire’s cabin. There’s no room for error here as the system spots if the worker has lifted the wrong component, and immediately stops the production line and sets off an alarm. We also saw how two technicians got the cabin roof trim fitted on to the interiors of the new Dzire.

By far, this was the most exciting part (for me) and as shown in the picture, the powertrain is lifted up to finally meet its role in the new Dzire. And from here the car goes through a series of checks like the brake and emission test before heading out of the production floor, and as you will see in our next shot, gleaming and freshly baked!

Pictures: Santosh Nair