Meritor India has recently expanded its current facility at Mysore to produce high end specialty axles which are used in mining, off-highway and military axles.  The new plant is a world class facility spread across 3,600 square meters and has the capacity to manufacture 9,000 axles per year. "The plant has the unique ability to manufacture a special axle weighing 10 tonnes used for a 100 tonne dump truck. We have also built a new factory at Jamshedpur for brakes and tag axles."

Thimmaiah's personal vision for his organisation is three-pronged. Firstly, he wants to grow the business profitably faster than the market - through highest level of performance to the customer while continuing to invest in new products development, venture into new business lines, adjacencies related to its product line. Secondly, he wants to create world class manufacturing - this includes factory and organisation culture. And third, he wants to have highly motivated employees.

Thimmaiah says that aligning people towards a common goal is the biggest challenge. He believes that it is very important that leaders should support each other in the organisation to seamlessly execute upon one strategy and one vision, and that is the challenge.

"You need to be constantly communicating and ensure they do not drift. I also want to say that I have been lucky throughout my career to have excellent teams in each organisation I have worked for. I want to emphasise that at my current organisation the team is excellent and among the best I have had, and that makes my job very easy. Market downturns are extremely challenging, identifying what should and should not be done during a downturn is very important," he says.

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