At a recent meeting with a developer, their CEO shared a critical piece of their interesting strategy that they endeavour to discover the lowest possible cost for all their inputs, irrespective of market pricing, by working out specific, best-fit, technically optimized solutions every time. Such a strategy has given them a success rate of two out of three tenders. Being an EPC contractor, we can truly add value to our customers not only by demanding lowest possible cost for our own inputs with our partners and giving technically optimized solutions but also by excelling in our operations.

Our predictive abilities make our plans robust that gives us an edge to manage risks better and achieve speed and scale. Thanks to our vast experience and spread, we are blessed with a huge amount of data and knowledge. We, at PT&D IC, are on a journey through a specific OPEX initiative to orchestrate the data captured by digital means and articulate organizational wisdom in a replicable manner.

We have reaped the benefits of modularization improvised to suit our own business needs, for instance, in the kitting of tower components or remote electrification items.

In our projects, the elimination of inefficiency starts early at the planning stage itself. For example, in the way we sequence our project tasks and assign work packages for our subcontractors. At our manufacturing set ups, our Industry 4.0 journey has gained momentum with marked improvement in the Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) of our equipment.

At the core of such initiatives is the centralized facilitator set up named PRAPTI – Planning, Reviewing and Assisting Projects to Improve – that equips the site team with the requisite tools and analytics to improve productivity. Productivity improvement reveals itself in project duration, like in the reduction of the number of days for our civil works to achieve clean room access in GIS projects. Be aware that timely completion is a panacea this will ultimately reflect in our profitability.

Finally, process simplification needs no emphasis. As Tiger Woods put it, “There is always stuff to work on. You’re never there.”

By getting better each day, we ensure a greater tomorrow for all of us!

GAINING A DECISIVE EDGE THROUGH COST LEADERSHIP

Driving process changes at PT&D

In sync with LAKSHYA goals

Aligned to the business goals and LAKSHYA 2021 plans, the OPEX initiatives are focused on Productivity Improvement, Cost Optimization and Process Time Reduction to gain a competitive advantage in the industry, reveals TMD, “to achieve which, we introduced various initiatives at the functional level driven directly by the BU heads through specific OPEX coordinators and Cluster Operating heads to effectively implement across factories and sites. Each OPEX initiative is driven by an OPEX Champion, supported by a small team working in close coordination with the OPEX team at L&T Powai to monitor, review and provide the necessary push to speed up implementation. 

Subsequently, as the initiatives have gained momentum, we have institutionalized them across functional levels as Standard Operating Procedures.”

Strategizing execution

To transit seamlessly from strategy to execution, PT&D has adopted a fundamentally strong, workable approach. “Our core initiatives are focused on improving execution methodologies, introducing process improvements, enhancing production capabilities, digitalization, engineering standardization, time saving and sustainable growth, that have ultimately led to customer satisfaction,” shares Deepak Nayak, Head Corporate Centre. About 26 major OPEX initiatives have given the IC comprehensive benefits across its various business. 

Aligning with the TOPSIS approach

For the core team of Karthik, Sandeep, Karthikeyan, Ravitej and Sahil Kumar, it was time to shift gears, and they opted for a novel scheme – Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), a multicriteria decision analysis method based on the concept that the chosen alternative should have the shortest geometric (Euclidian) distance from the Positive Ideal Solution (PIS) and the farthest geometric (Euclidian) distance from the Negative Ideal Solution (NIS). For instance, PIS maximizes benefit and minimizes cost, whereas the NIS maximizes cost and minimizes benefit assuming that each criterion needs to be either maximized or minimized. A simple and useful technique, TOPSIS ranks multiple possible alternatives according to closeness to the ideal solution. “After working out the mathematical functionality, the decision matrix was derived and then the order of preference arrived at,” elaborates Karthik. Therefore, instead of starting with 16 villages in April as originally planned, the team started with a different set of 9 villages in April and another 9 in May as per the revised schedule; the execution of 10 villages was brought forward to start in the 1st quarter that were originally scheduled for the 2nd and 3rd quarters. 

Keeping tabs on influencing factors

With the schedule spread over nine months, quarterly revisions to the weightages were made considering the dynamic nature of the influencing factors. “We iterated the TOPSIS approach thrice i.e. in March, June & September 2018, assigning different weightages to various criteria,” says Karthik, with each succeeding iteration excluding the villages that were started earlier. During the initial phase of the project, i.e. March to June, there was a compulsion to start and complete those villages under the SAGY scheme and directly monitored by the local Members of Parliament. With the customer having his own list of villages to be taken up on priority basis, the criterion of ‘Customer or Political Priority’ was given more weightage during March 18 and reduced in the subsequent months. As accessibility to several of the villages reduced with the onset of monsoon during July – September, the ‘Accessibility’ criterion was given preference while the ‘Complexity in Material’ criterion gained precedence during March & September due to the limitations in procurement of the specialized structures used specifically for the UE execution works.

The gains for the project team by adopting the project schedule based on the TOPSIS approach were manifold: reduction in average cycle time to electrify villages, reduction of schedule overruns, reduction in supervision costs, improved monitoring and implementation of quality and safety resulting in lesser working capital requirements that thrilled the stake holders. After the successful implementation of the pilot project in 36 UE villages in the Sambalpur District, the scheduling approach has been applied for the entire works.

There were instances especially in UPD projects where for a 24-month project, surveying alone used to take close to 4 months. Hence there was a dire need to make surveys more efficient especially for long span projects. A 4-member task force team at UPD’s HQ office was mandated to design and develop a GIS based solution to reduce survey time and improve data collection at sites during survey and execution stages.

Within a year’s time, the team came up with ‘LMNoP+Dhruv’, a unique digital solution that combines mobile application to collect and map all equipment at field level and the web application to review and finalize field data to submit to client. The application works through a Trimble catalyst device which is a lightweightx antenna that plugs directly into an Android phone or a tablet’s USB port to take measurements.

Elaborating on the simplification of the process, the development team comprising Charan, Ajay, Kaustav and Dileep take us through the paces. The surveyor at site has only to upload the data from the catalyst device following which automatic BOM generation location wise and auto survey drawings are generated with conductor/cable lengths finalized. ‘LMNoP+Dhruv’ has enhanced productivity and improved workflow that ensures faster delivery of the final survey outputs and less chances of any cost escalation. Across UPD projects, the average cycle time for conducting surveys has reduced from 4 months to just 2.5 months! 

Similar digital surveys have now become the order of the day at other projects too. At the 400 kV Chimuara -Nacala Transmission Line project in Mozambique, LiDAR was used to complete the 370 km topographical survey, where close to 100 km of the alignment passed through dense forests. Apart from time and cost savings, the crew’s safety was ensured. The site team is also using drones to capture data from various locations.

ENHANCING DELIVERY COMMITMENTS

Across PT&D’s factories in Pithampur and Puducherry, the process of production is driven through an internally developed, customized ‘PDSS 4.0 TL Tower Factory ERP’ software that monitors a range of tasks like BOM preparation, material requirement planning, cutting optimization, production planning, vendor planning, process control, QC checks, panel wise bundling and despatch. At the shop floor, the Theory of Constraint (TOC) approach is implemented to identify bottlenecks in the supply chain to streamline production processes. Considerable improvements have been made across various lines including galvanizing, beam production, fabrication of tower parts with reduced delivery lead times. Wastages in zine and binding wire consumption have also reduced. With tower wise despatches to sites, on-field teams have lead time, and cost and time are saved as there is no need for any segregation at site.

The demoulding time to produce precast poles in power distribution jobs has been brought down from 72 to 24 hours by changing the M40 mix design of concrete through admixtures that has also increased productivity and sales of poles.

Another process innovation at the 500 kV Chom-Bung Bang-Saphan 2 site in Malaysia has been a three-check point QR code that tracks elements from the factory, to the store and thence to the site through which likely shortages are immediately addressed, can be accessed any time and one can compare scope verses actually supplied tower elements.

TLT factory Puducherry

At Sarawak, two 240 MVA Auto transformers with a freight weight of 143 tonnes, comprising mainly of a tank that was 9.5 meters long, 4 meters wide and 4.5 meters tall, had to be supplied to the Marudi Junction 275/132 kV substation project. It was a two-day journey from the Bintulu port to the site, the cargo moving at speeds of 5 to 20 kmph accompanied by escort vehicles. At site, the issue was to position the transformer to its plinth area along the live substation without a crane due to space constraints. “We introduced the hydraulic jacking and skidding technique for the first time in this region for the installation,” informs Mohana Dayalan, the Project Manager, and it took just 2 hours to position the transformer from the road to the plinth, perhaps the fastest and most effective skidding/Jacking method executed in this region.

Ready for Commissioning Cell

Functioning as a nodal agency, an exclusive Ready for Commissioning (ROC) cell has been empowered to act and take decisions outside of the project team regarding any critical evaluation that calls for updates before issues are raised by the customer. Since this is an upfront evaluation before the client evaluates, the down time due to punch points have dropped drastically by 20%.

PATENTING TECHNOLOGY

Several technological innovations have seen light of day in solar tracker and battery energy storage systems. One of the biggest by the Solar BU has been the indigenous development of the Automatic Single Axis Horizontal Bifacial Tracker with Specular Reflective Elements. “This is a high energy yielding platform with 18% more output than the horizontal single axis monofacial tracker,” mentions Shaji John, Head Solar BU. “The L&T SAHBT tracker is designed with higher structural stability and is easy to handle, assemble and maintain while its automatic, remotely controllable and unmanned operation makes it a safe solar installation.”

Since backend service is just as important in product development, the Solar BU has developed an automatic module cleaning system that reduces water and manpower requirement by a whopping 70 to 80% while increasing energy generation by 2 to 5% in comparison to conventional methods. With the technology patents to be formalised shortly, these products will be a shot in the arm and a decisive competitive edge for the Solar BU when tapping global markets.

Single axis tracker block and single row tracker variants

Solar automatic cleaning system

Championing OPEX