QuEST to expand Rolls Royce Bangalore centre
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Bangalore: Bangalore based engineering services firm QuEST is planning to expand its dedicated Rolls Royce centre in the city by increasing its headcount by 500 employees by March 2010, reports the Business Standard. QuEST, which currently employs around 1,800 employees, has 350 people employed for Rolls Royce projects. Its centre in Bangalore supports various Rolls Royce aerospace engine programs, had also undertaken work on the development of the XWB engine for the new generation A350 aircrafts. All global market sectors of the Rolls Royce group have access to the engineering services provided by the centre. These include civil aerospace, defence aerospace, marine and energy. It costs around $20,000 to QuEST for adding one seat along with the software, and for increasing the strength by 500; it would cost an estimate of $10 million for setting up infrastructure, tools and equipments. "We continue to train QuEST engineers at our sites across the globe, and a majority of them have spent time in the U.K. based centers getting trained in processes and methods," said Ian Taylor, General Manager, Rolls Royce Operations, India. According to Taylor, the need to invest in and grow the engineering capability in the country is expected to grow along with Rolls Royce's business requirements. The company has already invested heavily in equipments and on the engineering team. QuEST is also looking towards other sectors like healthcare with the need to design and develop medical equipments devices and prosthetics. The company recently forayed in nuclear engineering. Apart from all this, the company is facing the challenge of scarcity of specialist engineers who have high level expertise in gas turbine technology, as they are hard to find. HR challenges are also among the hurdles the company is facing.

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