Within their organization, they are called the Men in Blue. To the outside world, they are the unseen hands that complement the robots at the various shop floors of Hyundai Motors – the company that has charted a success story with iconic brands such as Santro, i10, Verna, Creta and so on.
The Men in Blue may be unseen and unknown to the thousands of Hyundai vehicle owners, but for the management, they are the lifeline of their business and an integral part of their DNA. For the Men in Blue, the brand courses through their veins, on or off the shop floor.
It has been a tradition at Hyundai on every Ayudha Puja, to encourage different departments to create floats made from scrap material, to observe a festival that celebrates the very tools of their profession. “But this year we upped the ante and decided to engage the employees in a more creative pursuit. We asked each department to form teams of five. They were asked to go to the zero-value scrap yard and choose materials based on what they wanted to create, ideally a metal sculpture of not more than 2ft x2ft x 2ft. And, they were given two weeks to fabricate their design within the premises of the factory, only using materials and tools available to them,” says Stephen Sudhakar, senior vice president, Administration.
Twelve teams rose up to the challenge and 15 excellent sculptures were created out of shop floor scrap items like metal sheets, conveyor frames, oxygen masks, compressor fan, nuts, bolts, pipes, wires, bearings, etc. Thus, was born a set of stunning yet thought-provoking items, conveying the message of recycling and resource-management, so prevalent in the DNA of every Hyundain. Says Jerome Rajkumar, technician in the paint shop, who has been with Hyundai for 17 years, about his creation, The Horse. “The idea came about from the simple philosophy that life is a race and if you are a good horse, you will win it. I decided to do this sculpture on my own as I didn’t want my ideas to get diluted. I took three days to complete this and it weighs 20kg. I have used mainly gear wheels and piston rods among other materials.”
“With these creations, they unearthed the beauty in industrial products; especially those past their prime; proving that there is beauty in everything, provided we have the vision to see it! The message was clear – recycle to the maximum extent possible. These scraps were of zero value to the company and used to be given away to scrap dealers. The end result was that, creativity and ingenuity combined with motivation, produced great works of art from materials the Men in Blue used to work with in a mechanical fashion,” says Sudhakar.
Their art exhibition – Scrap to Sculpture, is being showcased in a 5-day exhibition at InKo Centre, Chennai open to the general public and family members of employees from August 31 to September 3, 2017.
