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“Every project I complete is memorable for me and gives me a great high,” declares Paresh Biswal, Head – MEP (Electrical, ELV & BHS Systems) which also means that Paresh has enjoyed several highs during his tenure with L&T for the project he is presently with, the development work for Phase 3A of Delhi International Airport, is his 16th! His track record is rich with stints at iconic projects like the Al Rayyan FIFA World Cup stadium in Doha, Qatar, the Salalah International Airport in Oman & Terminal-3 of Delhi International Airport. “My association with L&T has been truly memorable and I am proud to be a part of this organization because of the full freedom you enjoy to take decisions in your area of work.”

BUILDING A SOLID CAREER IN PRECAST

Karunanithi Rajashekar

Senior Construction Manager (QA/QC), B&F IC

Once the lockdown was announced, Production In-charge of the Precast Yard at the CIDCO project in Mumbai, Karunanithi Rajashekar and his team got cracking, effectively using the time to pre-plan activities such as sequencing, resource planning, quickly identifying vendors to accelerate project progress and milestones. As restrictions lifted, he and his dedicated factory team swung into action forming a taskforce to set up the precast yard, a massive production facility with a capacity of about 2 million sq. feet BUA in about 5 months, using the available resources including the help of global mould manufacturers such as Vollert, Germany and Bianchi, Italy for custom built moulds.

“We developed a precast floor plan with reduced element count to construct faster with lesser effort by adopting the concept of 3D POD that combined toilet, bath, and shaft as a single precast element,” Karunanithi points out. “We introduced a unique 3D wall that combined two room panels along with the inside loft windowsill and wardrobe wall. These were challenging for me but with the help of the global manufacturers we developed specialised customised moulds that proved successful,” he smiles in happy relief.

“We have been using BIM models extensively to plan, estimate quantity and monitor progress,” shares Karunanithi, excited about having found an able ally in digitalization to increase productivity and, at the same time, save time and cost. “The BIM drawings can be easily accessed using the centralised BIM 360 platform and with the Precast Digicast App, we can accurately track daily precast production, installations, moulds to element mapping, yard storage configuration and asking rates on a customised dashboard. It has also reduced paperwork and manual intervention,” he adds with a nod.

Though progress was hit hard due to lack of workmen and supply-chain disruptions, the team soldiered on to develop new working norms, adopt a more flexible working system, and address the broader concerns associated with the pandemic. “We even established vendors by giving them the confidence and required help to supply material on time.”

He is all praise for his seniors Vasantha Kumar and K Senou for their support and guidance and especially for his team for having faced the odds and performed so well. Karunanithi brings with him his experience of having previously worked at the Judicial Complex, Sunworth Provident Housing and Khopoli Precast Factory projects achieving significant milestones through his dedication and commitment.

“The favourite part of working for L&T is the easy acceptance of ideas and a culture that promotes camaraderie among employees,” he says, enjoying the company he keeps.

“I HAVE GOT THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE A PART OF THE MANAGEMENT TEAM!”

Workmen remobilization was his primary concern when work re-started after the lockdown. “Overall, we mobilized 1,800 workmen, in addition to the 40 at our workmen camp, and trained them adequately to measure up to L&T’s safety and quality standards,” he shares purposefully. His next objective was to fast-track progress, “for which several variables come into the picture and to control them, we had to maintain proper paperwork to analyse the cycle times by standardizing the formats and designating extra technical staff to keenly monitor the work. Client priorities all change from time to time, but our focus is to fulfil their requirements and, at the same time, ensure a better way of working by strictly controlling cost and time,” says Reegan, with newfound confidence. Apart from manpower and material planning, “for efficient material procurement, we had to look at least 4 weeks ahead.”

Construction has evolved into implementing lean construction, he opines. “I am not a trained professional, but I did my research to optimize manpower allocation and site logistic planning based on priority. At the same time, I am driving myself to be updated about the current market scenario.” He flags off a host of digital initiatives that have driven progress. “We initiated and successfully implemented Procube, implemented a bulk material optimization tool for concrete and reinforcement to control and minimize scrap, implemented the Safety Start Card and the Conquer Quality App.”

Reegan is married to Priya, a homemaker, and they are blessed with a son, Jennish Antony. He likes to spend his free time reading books and listening to songs, regards his wedding day as his life’s most memorable moment and is proud of L&T for the organization’s courage to handle such challenging projects like Statue of Unity and the Bullet Train.

THE ABILITY TO TIDE OVER DIFFICULT TIMES

Venugopal Thummapuri

Construction Manager (Civil), B&F IC

Already onto his 7th project with L&T at the Hyderabad Airport Expansion project, Venugopal Thummapuri, feels that a sterling quality about L&T is its ability to emerge successfully from difficult situations. “With able leadership at the helm, we have been able to wade through troubled waters without losing much and perhaps that is why L&T is looked upon as builders to nations,” he shares in awe. He has been facing a similar situation at his project for after the lockdown with the responsibility on the project team to retain trained workmen without compromising their safety due to the pandemic. “We had to mobilize skilled operators of specialized machinery too,” he adds, sighing that implementing SOPs like social distancing was always going to be a Herculean task.

However, made of sterner stuff, Venugopal and his team started developing their mitigation plans after understanding their challenges. “To make up for lost time, we had to start work for which it was important to keep our limited manpower resources healthy,” he points out. As new labour was recruited, some brought in on specially arranged buses, they were trained and put to work. Gradually, the work gathered pace. “At the same time, we looked at bringing in new resources under multiple vendors or contractors to speed up work on multiple fronts. Skilled and trained workmen were assigned specific tasks as per their capability to achieve higher productivity,” he shares. The team continuously interacted with the contractors and their teams to motivate them and spread awareness.

Prior to HIAL, Mangesh has worked at the Mumbai International Airport project where he was In-Charge of Aprons, Runway and Taxiway works and also at the Statue of Unity project as In-charge of M&VC, service building and landscape work.

Hailing from Nagpur, Mangesh is married to Pranjali Joshi, a homemaker. He spends his free time singing, listening to music, watching, and playing cricket.

Proud to be an L&T-ite, he says, “As an organisation, L&T has the ability to embrace new situations and is resilient when facing complexities to the extent that they become opportunities. No wonder, we are the Builders to Nations.”

PAINTING A BEAUTIFUL DIGITAL PICTURE

Painting is his passion and although Kishore Kumar laments that he does not get quality time for it, he has certainly found the time and opportunity to drive digitalization at B&F in his capacity as Construction BIM Coordinator. “I take care of BIM initiatives, training, and implementation of various Construction BIM technologies across B&F projects namely DIAL, BIAL, HIAL, IIT Bhilai, CIDCO, ACCF, ONGC Kakinada, Nxtra Data Center Chennai, NPCI & Raheja Hyderabad.” Having joined L&T in 2008 as a GET, Kishore has played various roles in projection execution and coordination during his tenure.

Post the unlock, Kishore was fretting about delays in execution works that led to a revision in project schedules, supply chain, logistic planning, and design deliverables. “The challenge was to rework on the entire project delivery sequencing and identify the implications of those changes,” he points out. “Another challenge was the delay in procuring the necessary approvals because of the WFH situation.” To address these challenges, “we initiated and scaled up the utilization of cloud-based document management systems like (BIM360) with the support of EDRC and Central Digital Engineering teams to connect with different stakeholders and quicken the submission and approval processes in some of our projects.”

At the CIDCO project, with the support of the Central Digital Engineering and Digital teams, Procube has been integrated with BIM. “Project progress can be seamlessly updated into BIM to generate 4D BIM model for visual progress reviews and client submissions,” shares Kishore, “while at DIAL, we initiated the BIM Kiosk concept to take the live 3D Design information directly to the place of execution that allowed the execution team to access the latest project 3D models for better interface management.”

Kishore is a native of Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh and is married to K Ramya Sree who is a bank employee. The love of Kishore’s life are his two daughters, D Samashti Ashna and D Sahasra Anha, who is only 9 months old. He recalls a car accident in 2020 from which they thankfully emerged safe.

“For a passionate civil engineer like me, L&T is my dream company,” he beams, “and I can proudly say that if something cannot be done by L&T then it just cannot be done!”

PLAN. PLAN. PLAN. EXECUTE.

“In any situation, the secret of success is to plan, plan, plan and execute by breaking the activities involved into micro level,” says Fayaz Ahmed, explaining his approach. “It is equally important to have the best team available for a particular task, the involvement of all the team members for quick decision making and information sharing and, in case of repeated activities, planning and re-planning to compress the schedule and duration.”

When operations resumed at his RAMCO project in Andhra Pradesh where he is responsible for the erection of a 60,000 MT capacity limestone storage shed, Fayaz was faced with several issues: shortage of manpower, reluctant vendors, increasing price of consumables and having to take on additional responsibilities as some employees were still stuck at home. “We had to retain our manpower and contractor and with cash flow slow, it was critical to gain the faith of the subcontractor workmen to maintain progress. Locating and identifying fabricated material was tough as also was tracking in-progress material. In some cases, we made alternate arrangements like plasma cutting when O2 rates went 4 times more.”

Apart from liaising with the government authorities for workmen movement outside and within the state, he mentions the role of the admin team to quickly create quarantine facilities at the camp and the effort of the entire team to strictly follow the COVID-19 safety protocols. “We documented our progress with the LPS system,” he infor“Not the same format we follow in our LEAN initiative, but sort of similar with the supervisor accessing it through the visitor booth.” Mrinmoy is thankful for his client’s help to procure the necessary approvals for workmen movement and permissions from the local bodies. “Our vendors have also stood by us taking all the measures we have asked them to,” he adds with a punched fist.

“My wife, Sudipta, is also a Civil Engineer and worked with the Eden Group for nine years,” he shares proudly, “but presently, she has sacrificed her career and has decided to stay with me in Assam with a tougher responsibility as a homemaker.” Hailing from Batanagar, Kolkata, Mrinmoy loves to watch cricket and read self-help, fiction, detective novels before going to sleep. His son, Aayushmaan’s birth has been his life’s most cherished moment!

An outstanding aspect about G Vinoth Kumar’s (or GVK as he would like to be called), career with L&T is that his present assignment at the RAMCO Cement project, Kolimigundla, is his 19th! He began his long and two-decade-long association in December 2001 at the Techno Park project in Thirunvananthapuram, Kerala. Although he did not escape the clutches of COVID-19, GVK has recovered well and is playing a big part in his project’s effort to make up lost time. “We have accelerated our pace by opting for the lean construction method and utilizing tower crane capacity 100%,” he shares enthusiastically, having achieved several of his milestones with LPS (Last Planner System).

“We have taken pains to identify, deploy and train the right kind of workmen for activities like RIB shuttering, IP & pocket fixing, erection of jump form boards and such like.” GVK is especially pleased with his team’s success in the Clinker Silo 1 to reduce the cycle time of executing a 3.6 M lift through optimisation. “Using LPS, we studied two lifts, changed the Fitter-to-Helper ratio for the Jump form installation and reviewed the cycle time of our subcontractor for PT works,” he points out. “By establishing proper protocols for better coordination, we reduced the cycle time for the lift from 15 to just 10 days.”

Other successes are completing 2000 cum of slab concrete, 172 MT of reinforcement and 30 MT of insert plate in July with just 40 workmen. “With continuous and daily monitoring, we completed the concrete slab in just three and half days,” his smiles victoriously. “We prepared LPS Daily Tracker Sheets, extended working hours and with complete focus completed the rest of the work in 25 days.” GVK attributes his success to his team ably led by Project Manager, P Girish Kumar, “whose motivation and leadership qualities have always encouraged me to achieve my targets within the prescribed time frames,” he says and acknowledes the support of all his team members.

One of his passions is to occasionally pen poetry or prose and, in the testing, post pandemic times, Biplab Bhattacharjee has been scripting his own success story. As a BIM Coordinator & Planning/ Purchase Engineer at the Assam Cancer Care Foundation, an umbrella project of 18 Cancer Care Hospitals in Assam, he is used to working in a fast-paced and challenging construction environment. “We faced several challenges post the unlock like the huge backlog in sourcing and supply of materials and the fear psychosis all around making it difficult to focus on deliverables but, working together as a team using digital tools extensively, we have been able to move forward,” he says with an infectious smile.

Biplab and team initially focused on achieving their immediate milestones. Considering social distancing norms, workmen were engaged at various fronts with proper safety and hygiene precautions and, to further accelerate progress, they introduced multiple short-duration shifts. “We monitored progress through Daily Progress Reports (DPR), which were circulated daily to all project stakeholders, including the client,” shares Biplab, “and by doing so, any oversight or delays were easily identified as the reports were compiled against weekly and monthly targets. By using other digital tools like Procube, BIM 4D, Digital Stores and WISA, we were able to achieve our targets efficiently.” Biplab applauds the constant support of their client, vendors, and associates in their quest for rapid progress.

“As most of the skilled workmen had left prior to the lockdown, we upgraded and re-skilled the existing and new incoming workmen by establishing a Site-Based Training Institute (SBTI) at our Dibrugarh project,” he shares. Apart from providing free transportation for the new workmen from their native places, incentives were offered to improve their productivity.

Biplab is all praise for his seniors and fellow team members who were immensely helpful throughout the challenging times reinforcing the belief that at L&T, the employees are indeed a big family.

Hailing from Guwahati, Assam, Biplab is married to Poulomi Chakravarty and loves to play chess, paint, and write, some of which have been published in local newspapers and magazines. Passionate about coding, he has learnt its basics on his own. His most memorable moment is buying a watch for his mother and a smartphone for his father with his first pay check.

Prior to Assam Cancer Care Foundation, Biplab has worked at the Statue of Unity Project as a Site Planning and Procurement Engineer and at Nxtra Data Centre, Chennai as a BIM Coordinator. He revels in the easy camaraderie amongst L&T employees irrespective of designation and cadre. “I have always felt at home at my workplace and it gives me great joy to work for an organization that actively fosters such a work culture,” he signs off proudly.

A L&T Build India scholar and having joined L&T from IIT Madras at the Motera Stadium as Senior Engineer in 2017, Vishnu Datta has since been building his career on various digital platforAt his present assignment at the IIT Bhilai project, he is driving BIM implementation up to LOD (Level of Development) 500. “We are dealing with progression of detailing of BIM models at three significant stages namely LOD 300 – Detailed design, LOD 400 – Coordination among disciplines & inputs from specialized agencies and LOD 500 – As-Built models with the elements modelled as constructed assemblies for maintenance and operations,” he explains. “It has been challenging to implement this considering the circumstances and with the many stakeholders involved but working cohesively, we are confident to build long term value associated with intelligent building models,” he adds confidently.

The first milestone for the project was to complete all work up to plinth/grade at the slab level. However, several discrepancies emerged between the consultant provided structure and architecture drawings during the LOD 300 model development forcing Vishnu and team to adapt a systematic approach to mitigate the challenges. “We raised 1000+ RFIs highlighting these discrepancies and resolved the issues without hampering site progress.” Since the design consultant representatives were unavailable at site due to COVID-19, Vishnu helped organise online workshops with 13+ consultants to resolve the RFIs on priority. 4D Models were used to assess progress with respect to baseline both qualitatively and quantitatively, with the results presented to the site management for review meetings.

As a digital lead, Vishnu is proud that IIT Bhilai Project is one of the first projects at L&T with more than 115 members from 10+ organizations under a single common data environment on the BIM 360 platform. “We have ensured seamless collaboration with design consultants, clients, vendors, site teams and BIM Consultants on BIM 360, a single point data source with all input drawings, 3D Models, Technical Data Sheets, CPWD Specifications, progress mark ups and site photographs. Also, the quantities extracted from BIM models are exercised for billing.” A delighted Vishnu is grateful for the support and guidance of Project Director, Rajesh Shukla and Planning Manager, Anil Kulgod.

“Every day when I am at work, I realise that I am contributing to the digital revolution of the construction industry driven by L&T,” he says with a smile. “It’s a beautiful feeling.”

Rohini Prabhugaonker is finding her voice in an industry that is considered challenging for women. “L&T is helping me carve my desired career path that has exposed me to cutting-edge technologies and the opportunity to interact with prominent leaders of the organisation without casting boundaries of hierarchy,” she declares, having been absorbed into L&T in 2019, after working in the precast industry since 2014. At her first project with L&T at the PMAY CIDCO Package-4, Kharkopar, Rohini finds herself with a team that set up the Precast Yard in about 4 months to begin production from November-end.

Having had to return to the drawing board, post resumption after the lockdown, to re-work all the calculations for the budget-curtailed factory set up, the team reoriented their sourcing strategy to focus more on local and Indian vendors for specialised material and moulds for casting. Production and dispatch plans were prepared as per installation works, and tracked to various monitoring sheets.

“Being the virtual digital champion for this project, we started off by implementing WISA, the Safety App, IOT, IB4U and Digital Stores.” Rohini has also significantly contributed to develop the App to track the precast elements cycle of production, transportation, and installation along with quality checks at various stages. The output from this app serves as an input to view project progress in BIM. “The app was developed with the L&T Nxt team led by Harish Ramani since the Precast Yard plans to manufacture more than 180 elements a day,” Rohini shares. “Currently, I am working on its implementation at site to integrate an inventory management module through Digital Stores to track the large number of inserts/ consumables that go into producing a precast element.”

Rohini is all praise for the guidance and support from her Project Director G. E Vasantha Kumar, the production and planning teams, K. Senou and his technical services team along with Amit Barde, and his ever-co-operative precast initiatives team as well as CIDCO TFL.

Hailing from Goa, Rohini’s inspiration for all her efforts at work is her life partner, Sharmad Nachnolkar, an Engineering Manager, Technology at Paytm. “Music is my passion. I hold a diploma in Hindustani classical music and have won awards at various state level and corporate music competitions,” she shares proudly. “I try to find time over weekends to practice vocals, play the guitar and ukulele to keep my passion alive,” therefore it is hardly surprising that her life is full of memorable moments.

“The zeal of every team member to discuss to arrive at solutions for every problem arising at site and their never give up attitude is something that inspires me to work here,” signs off this proud L&T-ite.

After playing a key role to successfully complete the Delhi International Airport T3 project, that is one of his career highlights, Anuj Chouhan finds himself in familiar surroundings as part of the project team constructing DIAL Phase 3A, IGIA Terminal 1. Anuj, however, would have hoped for a smoother run as progress has been severely disrupted by the pandemic. “Our primary issue was the acute shortage of manpower due to the unwillingness of the subcontractor and their workmen to come to New Delhi that was showing an alarming rise in positive cases,” points out Anuj. “We realized that we had to build trust and gain the confidence of both these stakeholders (workmen and subcontractors) to make progress.”

“Zeroing in and focusing on the activities in the critical path, we reached out to the grass root workmen in their native places,” shares Anuj about their modus operandi to woo the workmen back. “We even sent them pictures of the labour colony and how we were managing the COVID situation. Our people went to their villages to convince and bring them back in specially arranged buses. Our project head K V Praveen Sir, TFL used to conduct special meetings every alternate day with all the senior staff to ensure their engagement and attention.”

On the other hand, the team handheld the subcontractors providing them with welders, fitters, plumbers, etc. by coordinating with each of them directly. “MEP is a specialized work with the testing, commissioning & performance obligation of the integrated services lying with the subcontractor, so we resisted stepping in,” he says pointedly, “but our ultimate objective is to build an inhouse specialised team to execute these jobs directly including T&C.” Daily sunrise meetings were conducted for all services at site to monitor daily targets and address the design / site related constraints if any, with the subcontractor’s PM and planning participating.

“We extensively used PROCUBE to daily monitor zone wise progress, apart from other digital tools like Conquer, Digital Store, the EHS App, WISA, the Workmen Connect App, Power BI, Digital Smart Meter, etc.,” acknowledging the key role digitalization is playing in improving their efficiencies.

“Another memorable moment for me was the successful completion of TCS Garimapark and its inauguration by the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Narendra Modi ji,” he shares proudly adding that L&T is synonymous with building nations for “we deliver the most challenging projects!”

S Jagadeeshwaran

Senior Engineer (Civil), B&F IC

“On one hand, we were faced with the issues relating to the pandemic and, on the other, the need to push progress to make up for lost time,” says S Jagadeeshwaran from his RAMCO site in Kolimigundla, Andhra Pradesh. “We utilized the LPS and tower crane monitoring to speed up our works to achieve our targets. Our weekly work charts and daily micro level planning were very helpful in our effort,” he adds. The micro level data sheets helped the team to both scope accurately and monitor progress on a daily basis.

Like all project sites, the RAMCO site had issues of shortage of labour too forcing the team to mobilize workmen by transporting them in specially arranged buses from several places in North India. “Not only were we able to mobilize sufficient numbers but we were also able to maintain our workmen strength,” he shares with satisfaction.

Jagadeeshwaran, who is at his first project with L&T, had the additional responsibility of training the fresh crop of workmen. “We gave them site level training and monitored their progress daily to boost progress and successfully reduced the cycle time across various activities with the available manpower. During these sessions, we spoke to them about the root causes of COVID 19 and the precautions to be taken to improve their mental health especially when they were feeling down.”

The other component that Jagadeeshwaran had to manage was the subcontractor. “We arranged meetings with them to convey our SOPs and closely monitored their performance to ensure that they were delivering to quality. MS Teams has never been utilized so well,” he laughs.

Success is always the result of good teamwork and Jagadeeshwaran acknowledges the efforts of his Project Manager, P Girish Kumar and Section in-charge, G. Vinoth Kumar to remain in constant touch to allocate the required resources in time.

Jagadeeshwaran hails from Erode in Tamil Nadu, is married to Kiruthiga, a homemaker, and they have just been blessed with a new-born. Seeing her for the first time is his life’s most memorable moment. He loves watching movies during his spare time of which he has very little.

“It is great to be a part of L&T for we build India’s largest, biggest, highest and longest projects,” he signs off proudly.