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Business News/ Companies / People/  Karl Slym brought a new vision for Tata Motors: Tim Leverton
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Karl Slym brought a new vision for Tata Motors: Tim Leverton

The president of Tata Motors' engg research division speaks about changed engineering in the company, Slym's leadership and whether he is in the running for the MD's post

Tim Leverton, president and head (advanced and product engineering) Engineering Research Centre, Tata Motors Ltd. Photo: MintPremium
Tim Leverton, president and head (advanced and product engineering) Engineering Research Centre, Tata Motors Ltd. Photo: Mint

Tim Leverton, president and head (advanced and product engineering) Engineering Research Centre, Tata Motors Ltd, joined the company in 2010 and put together a plan with Karl Slym, the late managing director of the company, to improve the fit and finish of Tata cars. He is thought to be in the running for the top job following Slym’s death. In an interview with Mint, Leverton spoke about changing engineering processes at Tata Motors, Slym’s leadership and what the company learnt from its late MD. Edited excerpts:

There would appear to be several changes in your production and engineering processes.

I came here in 2010 and that point we were working on a whole range of things to be able to make Tata Motors fit into the future and in my domain, which is engineering, we are working on product strategy, technology and design. We had got a small, in-house design function at that point and so one of the things that I have done...we had 25 designers in India, four in TMETC (Tata Motors European Technical Centre) and a couple of them in Italy. Today, we have 200 people in Turin, nearly 100 in the UK. So we have a huge increase in capabilities.

The second area is how we develop the car. It was about what you need to do; how you put engineering together with design itself; and then how you develop it, test it and improve it; and then how you get it ready for production.

Actually, this is one area where we are getting a lot of inputs from JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) because they went through a similar process over the previous 10-15 years. Their association saved us a huge amount of time. There are three or four areas where we are working very closely with JLR. We have teams from JLR coming to us and helping us.

The third area is about organization. How do you work together? How do you put a team together and deliver a common goal?

One of the big things—I think right across product development in any discipline over the last 10-20 years—has been the transition from functional departments to cross-functional teams, and you put them under one leader and you give that leader an authority to drive through the project.

Did all of this come about after Karl Slym took over?

Some of it did. Some of it, needed priority and push that Karl provided. A lot of it was in process. Together with Karl and when Ranjit (Yadav, president, passenger vehicle business unit at Tata Motors) and Ankush (Arora, senior vice-president and head commercial of passenger vehicle business unit) joined, we were strengthening the team. We were able to accelerate the whole process in a very structured manner. I think that was one of the main strengths of Karl. He brought in a new vision. Having our product portfolio ready and clearly defined will help us in continuing a lot of things (that Karl Slym started). Of course, it’s a loss. He was a very good leader.

Will Tata Motors miss his leadership?

I think a lot of decisions have been made and we are working through them. Because of that, the risk of losing the way is less. Its up to us, senior executives, to make sure that we stay on course. One of the things that pulled the company together in the last few days was that we knew what we had to do.

I believe you are also in the running for the top job?

I don’t know about that. I have only read that in papers. I have got a huge job here and one should understand that it has taken a long time to even to reach this point.

Karl did talk about a global small car and said that the current Nano is not in a position to go to Europe. What’s the update on that?

We have a portfolio planned until 2020. On the backbone of that we have some architecture, which will enable us to deploy that kind of solution. To do that, we have to plan well ahead and that’s what we have been doing in the last 2-3 years. That will enable us to service this as well as the global market very well.

What will happen to the Nano? Will it go to the Western markets at all?

It’s obvious that it is becoming a well-equipped car with the kind of things that we have done with it in the last few months. Some of the reports in publications about the global safety standards..., that really affects the architecture of the vehicle as far as the need to go into the developed markets is concerned. So, that’s something which, in the near future, is not an efficient plan.

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Published: 04 Feb 2014, 12:58 AM IST
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