ITT opens tech center in India, its first in the region

VADODARA, INDIA: ITT Corp. has announced the opening of the ITT Technology Center in India, the company's first major facility to be located in the country.

The center will provide engineering and product development services to help drive emerging market growth for ITT's commercial businesses -- including fluid technology, and motion and flow control. The center is located in Vadodara, in the state of Gujarat on India's western coastline, and will develop deep engineering competencies in several core water and other fluid transport technology areas.

The Vadodara center will focus on localizing ITT's portfolio of products to meet the region's unique needs, while also assisting ITT's global new product development teams to achieve their growth goals in emerging markets.

"The new India Technology Center is a centerpiece of ITT's emerging markets strategy," said Brenda Reichelderfer, chief technology officer of ITT. "In India, we can take advantage of a large pool of experienced engineers to create a product design resource focused on meeting the needs of local customers, while adding unique skills and depth to ITT's global engineering capability."

Reichelderfer added that, with the opening of the India technology center and including ITT's engineering services partnerships, approximately eight percent of the company's product development engineers are employed in Asia to serve current customers in emerging markets, including China, India and the Middle East. She expects that number will rise generally in-line with the growth opportunities in these markets.

Earlier this year, ITT named Pradip Bhattacharyya to be the director of the India Technology Center. Bhattacharyya is a veteran of Larsen & Toubro Ltd., India's largest engineering and construction company, and Voith, a multinational engineering company headquartered in Germany. He brings more than 20 years of local market experience to ITT.

By the end of 2007, ITT also expects to complete construction of a manufacturing and assembly plant in the Gujarat region. The facility will primarily manufacture products for ITT's fluid technology business.