Optimal location for an assembly plant

A Finnish welding solutions company wanted to set up an assembly plant in India. Which industrial clusters have land available and at what cost? Are they close to the customers? Will the right blue collar skill sets be available? Will managerial talent be available and willing to relocate there? Is the cluster close to an airport as well as a port? Is water and electricity available? Are the roads good? Are the key components to be procured locally, available at close range? And several other considerations… Which is the most optimal location that satisfies all of these requirements?

Local knowledge and analysis framework to rank the possible locations

ValueNotes identified 134 relevant industrial clusters including Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and other industrial development centres in the short-listed areas of Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai/Pune.

We interviewed industrial development authorities like MIDC, TIDCO, APIDC, real estate consultants and industrial consultants in all the clusters and identified the most attractive clusters in each region based on availability of space and quality of infrastructure. Four clusters in the Mumbai-Pune region, 3 in the Hyderabad region and 4 in the Chennai region were thus short-listed.

For detailed information on each cluster, we conducted more in-depth desk research on the short-listed clusters and interviewed the officials of the industrial area, logistics providers, Pollution Control Board authorities, HR consultants, utilities providing services to this area and other companies, manufacturers & exporters located in these clusters to find information on government incentives; quality of infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity; availability of manpower; cost of land/ rental premises; key component manufacturers in each cluster, etc.

Based on around 55-60 conversations, we finally zeroed in on four clusters that were ideal for locating the client’s assembly plant.

Practical ground level actionable inputs = Rational decision-making = Improvement in ROI

ValueNotes was able to provide the company with practical and on the ground inputs on the advantages and disadvantages of locating in alternate clusters. They were able to zero in on the most suitable location for their plant.