When Keita Muramatsu arrived in India as CEO of Honda Motorcycles & Scooters India (HMSI) in 2011, the fully-owned subsidiary of Honda Motor Company churned out 1.6 million bikes annually. Today, with a capacity of 3.6 million and a planned production of 4.5 million by 2015-16, growth has been astounding."We climbed Mount Abu, then Mount Fuji, then Mont Blanc, and now we want to summit Everest," says Muramatsu. Having grown by 36.5 per cent last year, HMSI is gearing up to take on former Honda ally and numero uno player Hero, which grew by only 3 per cent, and dislodge it from the top slot in the rarefied heights of the Indian two-wheeler industry.Of course, Hero may be on the growth path too but it is Honda's astounding rate of growth and the resolve in Muramatsu's voice that calls for attention. Numbers don't lie either.India's two-wheeler market stands at 14,805,481 units having grown by 7 per cent from 13,797,748 units in FY2012-13. Of the 10,07,733 additional two-wheeler that rumbled and revved Indian roads last year, Honda has grabbed a large share.Why the sudden spring in its 'wheel', and more importantly, why now? The objective as mandated by Honda Japan is clear—in the two-wheeler mart, Honda, presently at number two, wants to be the new hero. With its licensing agreement with Hero coming to an end on June 30, 2014, HMSI is thirsting for 'first' blood.Under the agreement, Hero could continue using the Honda brand name till the stipulated timeframe, though it discontinued doing so since 2012. Also, there would be flow of new models and platforms from Honda Motors to Hero until June 30, which also got dissolved. So with new-found zeal, the 56-yearold Muramatsu San has set out to garner market share and topple Hero in its own backyard.A Honda veteran with stints in Italy, Germany and Spain, Muramatsu saw HMSI volumes soar from 1.6 million to 3.6 million in his three years at the India office. After he came on board in 2011, the second factory at Tapukara, Rajasthan, started operations with a 1.2 million unit capacity.Last year, a third plant in Narsapuram, Karnataka, came on stream churning out 1.8 million units. A fourth all-scooter factory is set to roll in at Ahmedabad next year. That would take Honda's overall capacity to 5.8 million vehicles, at kissing distance to where Hero's 6.1 million bikes.Of course, Hero is poised for growth too. "Hero is gunning for 9-10 million bikes by 2020 but it will be very difficult for the company to protect its turf for long despite localization and knowing the Indian market in and out," says Rajeev Singh, Partner, KPMG.With the troika of gemba, gembutsu and genjitsu strongly woven in his DNA, Muramatsu is stepping on the gas. In April, Muramatsu toured villages in UP with Takanobu Ito, CEO of Honda Motor Company, to gauge rural life first-hand."Near Varanasi and Jaunpur, the road conditions were so bad that I realized we needed to provide highquality rugged vehicles for such areas, which was also confirmed by more than two people sitting on the vehicles which were at times over-burdened by load. We also need bikes with better headlights," he says.With gemba (going to the place of action) and gembutsu (seeing the actual object) in the bag, the conversations that followed would form the thrust for new model development in times to come bearing in mind ground realities—that's genjitsu.Again, after HMSI entered the mass segment with its Dream Yuga motorbike in 2012 and launched another variant, Neo, Muramatsu and Yadvinder Singh Guleria, VP-Operating Head Sales & Marketing, traveled to the interiors of the country and noticed people wearing loud colors. It got reflected in CD110 Dream bikes the company launched a few months back."Another realization was that whenever there's a front visor, village folk prefer to write their names on it and so if we made a design where the visor was small, it won't be accepted in the market," says Guleria, adding that they also had to make a commission for the longest seat in the category in both Neo and CD110 Dream when they saw 3-4 people traveling on the same bike.While G-cube is a never-ending quest, the 17,000-odd HMSI folks busy themselves with fresh targets year on year, many times steeper than the competition. In part, it has to do with HMSI's growing contribution to Honda's revenue pie, which sits at a 25 per cent.The Indian two-wheeler market is the largest in the world and has surpassed China a couple of years ago. Honda has garnered 70 per cent market share in Thailand and clocks upward of 60 per cent in Vietnam and Indonesia.Alongside ramping up the numbers, HMSI is pooling in processes for better management bandwidth. "We need fast decisionmaking from management to maintain such levels of production," says Toshinobu Motai, Group VP & Director, HMSI. With this in mind, R&D, manufacturing, quality and purchasing have all been moved into the Manesar facility.This is the first time all departments have been pooled together under one roof for any Honda operation across the globe. "There may be conflict, we have to decide in one direction. For example, purchasing may emphasize on cheaper procurement but quality may disagree," says Muramatsu. That direction and single-line focus is driving both the front office as well as the backend at Honda India.Already leaders in the automatic scooter category with 55 per cent market share, as the company ups the ante with one launch every quarter, flexibility is key. In the second plant at Tapukara, for example, three models come out of one line.Increased forecast is an obvious challenge for the production team as a small change in demand may impact on the entire chain. "We mostly go by threeyearly to annual to a monthly plan. Some 5-7 per cent change is always manageable in our system," says Pradeep Pandey, Operating Head VP—Corporate Manufacturing. But the production plan is never foreboding.In fact, at the backend, suppliers are made familiar with the plan well in advance and are even handheld through stringent Honda quality processes. "Our basic policy is that suppliers should grow with us and so whatever is the increase in production, we would like to share that among our current suppliers," says Anupam Mohindroo, Senior VP, Purchase & Director.Take the case of Sriram Pistons & Rings that supplies pistons, rims and engine valves to HMSI. "Honda has a clear plan which is shared with us much in advance (3 years) as they work with us and come up with value engineering ideas to reduce costs at every step of production," says Ashok Taneja, MD & CEO, Sriram Pistons & Rings. "It is very challenging as they (Honda) think in terms of double digits, unlike others in the industry."Typically, as plan numbers are shared with suppliers much in advance, people like Taneja get on the drawing board with scenario planning. "If the requirement from Honda goes up by 30 per cent, I have to look at my warehousing, people. We take their growth and the growth of the industry into account and create scenarios," says Taneja, who is planning to set up operations near Honda's next facility in Gujarat.Again, Uno Minda supplies switches, horns, lights and dye-cast painting parts to HMSI as well as a clutch of other companies. For dye-casting, the company has even set up dedicated plants for HMSI in Bawal near Tapukara and at Narsapuram near Bangalore. "With the kind of volumes they have, it is better to be a part of them," says Ravi Mehra, Group CEO, Uno Minda.Mehra says that when it comes to product development, the supplier gets involved early and specs are made very clear from the beginning. Once that is frozen, there is no change, he points out. "Besides, they review with us if there are constraints and how to overcome them," he says, throwing light on the recent development of a noise suppressor cap—a new part that reduces noise coming from the spark plug."The development started 1.5 years back and Honda experts guided us along the way to make sure when the Activa 125 was launched a few months back, it was trouble-free," he says.With the backend of 204 vendors intact, Honda is knitting a countrywide presence of dealers. Last year, HMSI closed its dealership network at 2,000 and this year, it is aiming at 2,800, which would still be just about 50 per cent of the network the competition has. The company has set up 12 zonal and five regional offices since 2011."We have 16 training centers at 17 locations and our sub-dealers are happy. Our people need not waste time in traveling long distances because their business suffers as customers come and have to wait," says Guleria. There is also a separate vertical in place taking stock of new network development.Ask Amit and Sumit Taneja, both directors at the Ganpati Honda dealership in Gurgaon, and they seem to be ready for Honda's next wave of growth. With only two locations in Gurgaon until last year, they have had to open two more to cater to soaring demand."When we started Honda's dealership at the turn of the millennium, we had only two bays but now across locations, we provide 33 bays. From an initial 6,000 sq.ft., we are now over 30,000 sq.ft. and from servicing a mere 20 vehicles a day, we now service 250, and last month serviced a record 6,000-plus vehicles," says Amit Taneja.Along with a surge in volumes and variety, a multi-skilled workforce always comes in handy. "People must know additional skills across models and a typical line associate on the shopfloor should be capable of working across at least three stations," says V Sridhar, Senior VP (Manufacturing) & Director. He adds that at the supervisor level, the candidate should have the capability to manage at least 2-3 lines. "He should be able to manage not just different sets of people but different sets of machines," he says.Regular training is imparted by various project teams that fly down from Japan and a dedicated workforce stationed across locations. And with growing volumes, it is important to keep the 17,000-odd workers (will touch 20,000 when the fourth factory in Gujarat gets operational in 2015) motivated."We have worked on several areas, like benefits and remuneration, and brought about changes in terms of policies like home loans and mediclaim. With scale, satisfaction on-the-job is the biggest high," says Harbhajan Singh, VP—General & Corporate Affairs.Add to skills the new technologies that are being unleashed in the R&D centre at Manesar that was set up in 2011, and it is a sure-shot recipe for change. This is where 400 people are deployed to focus on new model development. It also looks into material efficiencies for localization. It becomes all the more significant given the new thrust in the mass category primarily in rural areas, which is currently Hero's forte."Given our global technology which favors light weight vehicles, we find the need for heavier bikes in rural India to carry more load and that R&D is being carried out by the center," says Guleria. And now with the licensing agreement with Hero finally nipped in the bud, Honda has also embarked on the very inyour-face 'Only Honda' campaign where it uses its global wing mark to effect. It could not do so before June 30.With the campaign and its brand ambassador (a first for HMSI) Akshay Kumar, Honda is hoping to connect with the mass category at a very local level, while activating even villages with 10,000-odd inhabitants. Clearly on overdrive, the sum and substance of Honda's commitment of pipping Hero to the post is not lost. It's just being fast-tracked.