Magna bags Mahindra award for Scorpio’s ladder frame chassis

Magna International Inc has announced that it has received the Best Product Development Performance Award from its customer Mahindra & Mahindra.

The award was presented at Mahindra’s Supplier Conference in Warsaw, Poland, recently and recognises the excellence of Cosma International, Magna’s body and chassis operating group, for the design, engineering and development of an innovative ladder frame for Mahindra’s Scorpio SUV and other vehicle platforms.

“We are thrilled to receive this award from our valued customer Mahindra, particularly because it recognises our full product development capability,” said Swamy Kotagiri, Magna’s Chief Technical Officer. “From design and engineering to validation and production, our team stands ready to deliver.”

Mahindra & Mahindra awarded the complete re-engineering of the Scorpio chassis frame based on Magna’s engineering capabilities and global leadership in chassis systems. Magna has produced 24 million frames for its global customers.

In response, Magna proposed and engineered a modular frame that can accommodate multiple vehicles and variants, and a manufacturing process was developed to make the frames on a flexible assembly line. The company says its localisation strategy has been optimised for the Indian market, and performance has been improved to meet and/or exceed the mass and safety requirements.

The complete design, engineering and development of the frame was done at Magna’s product development and engineering centres in Bangalore and Pune. Activities included product design, CAD, CAE and advanced manufacturing.

Manufacturing of the frames was launched in 2014 at Magna’s body and chassis plant in Pune, where nearly 45,000 chassis frames for Mahindra have been produced to date. The state-of-the-art stamping, welding and assembly facility – a 279,000 square-foot building with more than 450 employees – features industry-leading automotive manufacturing technologies.