Acer India increases capacity

Acer India, the wholly owned subsidiary of Acer Inc, has increased the capacity of its unique loading facility called Uniload in Pondicherry, to reconfigure up to 4200 units per month. Following what it calls the Fast Food Model, the facility configures Acer certified components procured directly from Acer sources worldwide, to build machines according to customer specifications. 

It has four stages of quality assurance processes to fine-tune the machines to the Indian environment including auto-run tests to avoid human errors and online storage of test results for detailed analyses. 

"The Uniload facility enables us to offer cost effective solutions to our customers despite being a late entrant in the Indian market. It has also helped us launch new products in India around the same time as international launches," says Sudhir Goel, Deputy-GM (Operations and Support), Acer India.

The facility in Pondicherry, which had a total investment of about Rs 2.5 crore till date, configures all models of desktops, entry level and mid range servers and storage boxes. Acer India, whose entire sales and delivery is through its partners, has an ERP program linking all the functions relating to manufacturing. 

"We are planning to take the entire process of placing orders on the net in the coming months, so that it becomes easy for our partners," adds

Goel.

Acer India's major customers include the banking, insurance and finance sectors in addition to the public sector units and government departments. It is looking forward to manufacture about 50,000 units this calendar year.

"Though the home segment is a lucrative segment, we have no immediate plans to plunge into the sector as we do not have adequate infrastructure in place to meet the varied demands. But we might look at it after one or two years," says

Goel.

Acer India, which had an investment of about Rs 3.5 crore till now from the parent company Acer Inc, had generated a turnover of about Rs 125 crore last calendar year. Another 2.5 crore are in the pipeline for this year.