07 June 2009;economictimes.indiatimes.com:NEW DELHI: Amid demand for servicing over 10 lakh cars in a month, Maruti Suzuki has said it has taken various initiatives, focusing on three critical aspects -- skilled manpower, system improvement and innovative practices -- to upgrade the area. Maruti Suzuki crossed the 10-lakh cars mark in May this year for the first time, a senior company official said. "In recent months, we have taken a number of initiatives to enhance the service capability of our network. We have focused on three critical aspects -- skilled manpower, system improvement for service by productivity and innovative practices. Our strategy is to increase service productivity as well as service quality at service workshops," Maruti Suzuki India Executive Officer (Service) Pankaj Narula told PTI. The company has a network of 2,774 workshops across 1,319 cities and it has upgraded around 600 dealer workshops to its specially designed Express format, while over 640 are 2-Tech workshops. "Around half of the gross profit of Maruti Suzuki sales and service dealership comes from workshops today. In 2007-08 this was around 40 per cent," Narula said. Maruti Suzuki has also gone for high service skill and productivity enhancement of manpower in the workshops. It has service training programmes that certify workshop technicians in various grades depending upon skill levels. "Over 4,000 service technicians have been certified for different levels so far. The company has plans to certify a similar number of technicians for their skills during 2009-10," it said.
