I joined in this company in 1994. At that point of time we were making about 1800 to 2000 motorcycles in a month and somehow in the first day itself I fell in love with this company and the product. I still remember when me and Sid met. The power which we have understood at that point of time is, if you go back to the community If you start working with the community, listen to the community, ride with the community, they will actually tell you what exactly they want, what exactly they were looking for from that motorcycle.
The term or the terminology which is used in the rest of the world is DFM, which is Design for Manufacture or Design for Manufacturability, which is the design which is created helps manufacturing. The way Royal Enfield looks at it is the other way around. Which is manufacture, what is design.
Royal Enfield is the one organization, one company which maintains that human touch in manufacturing the motorcycles because that gives a different feel, that passion, what the people will have a passion in building the bikes and that human touch. So the fuel tank. Getting buffed by a robotic arm so that the tank under the chrome plating gets a full sheen. That tank is getting painted by robots.
Once the painting done a human an artist takes it and put a pinstripe in it. Robo buffed, robo painted and human or an artist create a pinstripe over it. What else is the best way to marry a heritage value and the modern technology? The focus of Troy Landfill is not on motorcycle, then it's a product.
It's always on motorcycling. It means it's a connection between the person and the product. It's not about sitting in meeting rooms and board rooms and discussing what is the next thing to do.
It's the kind of connect which a lot of the team members have with the person who's actually putting together a fuel tank or a frame or an engine. When I look back at 2004-2005, we were making about 80-100 motorcycles a day. And today we are in excess of 3,000 a day.
So the scale has grown, but not only the scale, it's also to do about the type of quality levels which we are achieving every day. There is always a myth, is that if you increase the number, quality will deteriorate. That was the first mindset change which I wanted to bring into the entire workforce. First thing which I used to do was not go to the desk.
I'll go inside the plant, I will spend about an hour or so in the plant, talking to the people. When Siddharth came in, and he also joined along with me, and then we were going for a daily morning routine. And we were going through an engine assembly line, and we picked it up and then we found there is enough debris which was there in the oil galleries in the component, and it was getting assembled.
You can't make a product which is not standing up to that what we claim to. Then we found that that's an issue. Instead of shying away from that problem, we took it as an opportunity. And in fact, we got obsessed in bringing that to the quality level, especially on the cleanliness. It's picking up.
where the bullet engine is being manufactured. There are about 560 mistake proofings and assembly automations are there in that and we are making almost about 3200 engines per day and that's in the best in class quality. Our engine is the cleanest engine.
which was certified by independent youtuber and when he is compared with that engine cleanliness Royal Enfield engine cleanliness is much much better than the other motorcycles it is a surprise for him also actually We have gone for an air-conditioned place where the engines are being assembled. Thereby, there is no external dust coming and settling onto the product. So, thereby we can proudly claim that we are able to give a cleanest oil. And we changed the frequency, reducing the cost of ownership for our customer. When it comes to the brand Royal Enfield logo on that and the quality OK sticker, the customer feels that yes, it is assured.
So at Royal Enfield, sustainability is at the centre. All our operations, we always design in such a way it has to be towards a greener operation for the net zero. That's what we always talk about.
Even in the design of the logo, of our plant itself. All our manufacturing plants, be it Vallambadakal, Oragadam and when through it to you all of them are water positive. What does it mean? It means the amount of water which we are drawing for any of the processes we are actually recharging back into the earth. Apart from that, all our manufacturing plants are zero discharge plants.
That way we don't pollute the place where we are actually doing the manufacturing of our motorcycles. Consciously we drove as an initiative and said single use plastic should be completely avoided in the manufacturing operations in our factories. And now we are extending it to our offices and to an extended ecosystem of our entire We have a very good amount of greenery in the plant and we are looking for a lot of green power and we are working on many projects which can reduce the carbon dioxide emission so that we have a sustainable environment.
Laser welding is environmentally friendly. The output is more, the productivity is very good, and it is automated. And the quality levels are superb. Today in all our manufacturing plant we are almost 50% is through a renewable energy. We have installed almost 25 megawatt solar system that gives power feed back into operations.
What our CEO says that it's a 120 years startup company. So that is because of the culture what is established in this company. The freedom for the people want to do it and the urge to do new things.
As a designer, I'm not here to just design some machines. We are given an opportunity to create, design the aspiration. We are designing the aspiration.
So that's a great thing. So there is no limitation. We don't follow the others. We don't do things others have done. We do things differently and we make the people to follow us.
That is the uniqueness in VALOR. There are processes which have to be followed, there are application of robots which have to be done and various other capacity and capability related infrastructure that we are developing. be replicated by any other OEM or any other manufacturer. What I think still drives us is this type of people and their passion towards work to ensure all that gets translated to the motorcycle which we want the customer to enjoy. So I think that is the crux and differentiates us from the rest of the manufacturers.