MRF Tyres has established a mini factory in Tamil Nadu’s Trichy just for the $3-billion tyre maker’s engineers to experiment by building, testing and learning from their successes and failures.

Managing Director Rahul Mammen Mapillai pointed out that businesses often mix product development and R&D, when in fact they are distinct processes. 

“Product development is when you are trying to meet customer requirement for the next six months. True R&D is working outside comfort zones and working in areas where you can’t assure yourself of a timeline,” he elaborated.

R&D involves allowing engineers to experiment, get quick validation and learn from their failures and successes, he said.

Rahul further said, "To create the environment where engineers are allowed to do that, we have built a mini factory in Trichy where engineers are allowed to build what they want where there is no production pressure. In six months’ time, we have our test drive coming up right near the production unit so they can build tyres, test tyres, learn, validate and move forward.”