The focus at the NK Minda Group is on collaborative designing with the OEMs. The Group has the capability to improvise existing products as well as offer cost-effective solutions for products already available in the market. With strong focus on R&D, the company has been constantly evaluating and employing emerging technologies to benefit its customers.

NK Minda Group provides its customers with all the facilities under one roof be it design and development, prototyping, testing, validation and quality, or manufacturing the final product.

At the NK Minda Group, the USP is an association with the customer right from the concept stage to black box design and development of new products. The company has the competencies and resources to create products and solutions for specific customer requirements.

Styling & Designing
NK Minda Group has two design studios located at Manesar & Pune with top-of-the-line CAD-CAM software with 68 dedicated CAD seats, with more than 100 experienced and technically competent product designers and well-developed facilities to create the latest innovative designs for the customers.

The company has 50 Workstations of PRO-E Wildfire 2 and is the largest user of the same among Tier-1 suppliers in India. It also has 13 Workstations of I-DEAS 10 NX.

Some of the finest design softwares like PRO – Engineer Wildfire II, I-DEAS Simulation NX 12, Alias, Rhinoceros, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Imageware are used by the designers to produce the designs best suited to customer requirements. These softwares are extensively used for 3D styling and to check the surface details, assembly, mating parts and seamless movements.

The concept design goes through well designed processes that include Hand sketch, followed by Computer Graphics using Photoshop. Clay Modeling and Wood Modeling follow and once these have been approved, rapid prototyping of the product development takes place. The various methods used are SLA, SLS, FDM, Vacuum Casting, Silicon moulding, 4Investment Casting, Manual Prototyping and CNC Machining. This is followed by fitment trials. The Simulations – Thermal / Optical /Others as required are undertaken to ensure optimum performance of the component.

An important part of the designing process is the involvement of the customer right from the initial stages.

Concept Design
	Hand sketch
	Computer Graphics using Photoshop
	Clay Modeling
	Wood Modeling
	Rapid Prototyping
	Simulations – Thermal / Optical /Others
	Black Box Design
	Involvement with customer right from initial stage
Our strong design capabilities have enabled to file the number of patents of innovation design

Tooling
The tool design team ensures that seamless integration of 3D and CAD takes place with Product Design, maintaining bi-directional associativity, tool design and tool manufacturing.

All tooling and die casting is also undertaken in-house, and over 300 dies and tools have been created. The special Tool design infrastructure includes more than 20 dedicated tool engineers spread across two locations, Manesar & Pune, dedicated CAD CAM seats with software like Pro-Engineer Wildfire 11, Ideas NX 12, Moldflow analysis & Plastic Mold Advisor. This ensures that seamless integration of tool designing with manufacturing takes place.

Production Engineering
Production Engineering enhancements ensure that the manufacturing process is smoother, quicker and has seamless movement right from design & development to producing the final products. This includes emphasis on Process Design, JIG / Equipment Design, JiG / Equipment Manufacturing and Assembly Line improvements like single piece movement, etc.

Product Validation

		Before each component goes for final fitment, it is subjected to an exhaustive range of tests to check and recheck the proper working of the component in extreme conditions. A special battery of tests are conducted and these include
Voltage Drop Insulation Resistance Operating Stroke Operating torque/load High Voltage Dust Resistance Corrosion Resistance Water Shower Resistance Damp heat test Dry heat test Cold test Rapid change of temperature test Vibration test Drop and topple test Repeated operation test Impact load		Gradual load Hardness Dimensional Chemical composition Oil pressure Breakage strength test Thermo cycle test Electric corrosion durability test Weather resistance Connector holding load test Printing test Accelerated corrosive environment test High temperature soak test Low temperature soak test Operation feeling test Random vibration test Crawler vibration test