Gamesa India recently held a meeting in Chennai with its 52 top suppliers. The purpose of the meeting was to analyse the company's current expansion in the Indian wind market and to convey to suppliers the need for continued joint effort on an ambitious plan to establish commitments on costs, quality and deadlines and to allow the company to strengthen its local supply chain in India.

The meeting, attended by 170 people, featured the theme, “Assembly: Gamesa and its suppliers creating a green future together". Participants discussed Gamesa's robust expansion in the Indian market in the past year and the company's firm commitment to the success of its suppliers in the region. Gamesa supports these suppliers in their manufacturing and component delivery operations and in their efforts to align their quality control and process standards with Gamesa’s requirements.

These efforts have paid off in the installation of 148 Gamesa G58-850 kW wind turbines as of September 2010, all of them locally produced; however, the company's strategy calls for it to increase its manufacturing capacity fourfold by 2013, boost sales (average annual accumulated) by 166% between 2011 and 2013, and continue to meet local needs through the manufacture of the G9X-2.0 MW turbine system and ongoing rollout of the G5X-0.850 MW series.

Commitment to improve safety, quality, delivery and costs

“In this context, we need the commitment of our suppliers in terms of safety, quality, delivery and costs", said Ramesh Kymal, Gamesa India chairman and managing director.

Wim Geldhof, purchasing manager, and Devarajan Srinivasan, purchasing manager in India, added that these priorities are necessary "to ensure simple contracting processes, rapid response times and to generate solutions that improve equipment costs and efficiency”. “Our plan for localising production of the G5X-0.850 kW and G9X-2.0 MW systems requires everyone’s involvement”, said Srinivasan.

Also in attendance was Gamesa Operations Manager Ricardo Chocarro, who outlined Gamesa's value proposition, "based, among other cornerstones, on achieving competitive energy costs, enhancing the reliability of our products and range of services, offering products with superior technology and obtaining maximum flexibility in response times”.

The event closed with more than 50 one-on-one meetings between company officials and each of its suppliers.