Commenting on the achievement, Michael Boneham, president and managing director of Ford India, said "We are thrilled and proud to celebrate the 100,000 production milestone in such a short space of time - my congratulations to all plant employees for a job well done! This world-class manufacturing facility reinforces our intent and commitment to compete with great products and powertrains in all segments."

Part of Ford's USD 500 million investment at the Maraimalai Nagar site, the India Engine Plant is designed to meet the growing needs of the Indian vehicle market and export opportunities.

"We are proud of the milestone which was achieved thanks to the great team spirit of our highly motivated and dedicated employees. We are confident that the next 100,000 engines will be produced at an even faster pace," said Radhakrishnan Balasundaram, who as vice-president, Powertrain Operations, leads the India Engine Plant.

The plant is the first Ford facility to feature a flexible production line that manufactures both petrol and diesel engines. Today, the plant produces five Duratec petrol engine variants and one Duratorq diesel engine. The plant has exported more than 38,500 engines to South Africa and Thailand so far.

Covering more than 40,000 square metres, the facility is an advanced manufacturing centre that has been created with the global best practices for engine manufacturing. It has the capacity to produce 250,000 engines per year.

In addition to state-of-the-art facilities, the plant runs a number of innovative eco-friendly production strategies including a "cold test process" that uses advanced electronics and sensing mechanisms to evaluate engine performance and NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) without burning any fuel.

"The cold test process helps to reduce our carbon footprint as well as test-cycle times and allows better NVH control," Balasundaram added.

In recognition of its leading best practices, the plant was awarded the Total Maturity Model (TMM) quality award by Ford Global Powertrain Manufacturing Engineering in 2010. With this milestone, India is emerging as a low-displacement engine manufacturing hub for Ford in the Asia Pacific and Africa region.