ASHOK LEYLAND expanded its manufacturing factories in Hosur, Bhandara and Alwar in the late 1970’s and ’80’s. Our firm was first selected to design their engine plant at Hosur in 1986, an association which continued for two decades during which all plant expansions and up-gradation work at all three manufacturing centres were carried out by us.

During this period we designed and managed the construction of a wide variety of buildings like machine shops, assembly shops, press shops, engine test facilities, R&D centres and other related social facilities. The external spaces were also planned using modules to make expansions systematic and easy to plan.

At Ennore, their first plant in the fifties, entire shop superstructures were dismantled and rebuilt to new standards and design with only minimal disruption to production facilities. The new facilities included a large air conditioned engine assembly shop and major CNC machining facilities.

At Hosur the facilities included a chassis assembly line, an engine assembly and engine test facility consisting of thirty five cells, The cells were acoustically designed to reduce the noise level of around 110db inside the cell to around 60db in the control room. A tunnel connected all the test cells to the energy centre from which all utilities were fed to the test cells. The cells were also ventilated through this tunnel. A cab panel press shop was established at Hosur phase II in 2002. This was designed to hold a line of eleven presses which would ultimately become an automated system.

AL’s Technology Development Centre at Vellivoyalchavadi is the main R&D facility of Ashok Leyland. The design office is a two-storey building where the office areas are designed to be flexible spaces allowing for re-grouping of design teams to suit the ever changing requirements. The work area has several discussion tables in open format for quick access and also closed discussion rooms for more formal uses. There are two video conferencing facilities and a state of the art auditorium to seat two hundred persons. The building is entered through a high central lobby with two design wings on each floor overlooking the space. Two landscaped courtyards separate the design wings from the auditorium.