Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Sunday, Jun 18, 2006
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Sunday, Jun 18, 2006 |
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Corporate
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New Projects Industry & Economy - Electronics Leighton bets big on new projects N. Ramakrishnan
ON A WAR FOOTING: Work apace at Flextronics Technologies site at Sriperumbudur near Chennai. Leighton is trying to complete the project by first week of September. — Bijoy Ghosh
Chennai , June 17 "In February, this was just brown bush that you see over there," says Mr Simon Chivers, General Manager - Building, Leighton Contractors (India) Pvt Ltd. The `this' he is referring to is where Flextronics Technologies' electronic manufacturing facility is coming up, about 45 km west of Chennai along the national highway to Bangalore. Nearly 900 workers are busy bolting steel frames together, paving roads or laying drains, as Leighton Contractors (India) races against time to get the first building for Flextronics ready for inauguration in the first week of September. Flextronics' facility, a special economic zone, is spread over 250 acres. The first building will cover about 2,90,000 sq ft and the second 2,50,000 sq ft. Flextronics is a leading electronics manufacturing service provider and it plans to produce parts for telecom, mobile communication, automotive and consumer electronics.
Delivery expertise
Leighton bagged this contract too because, as Mr Chivers says, of its expertise in delivering such time-critical infrastructure from design to finish to tight time schedules. Leighton constructed Nokia's manufacturing plant, just a few km ahead of Flextronics' facility, and is in discussions for some more such projects, according to Mr Chivers. Leighton Contractors (India) Pvt Ltd is a subsidiary of Leighton Holdings of Australia. According to Mr Brian Maginness, Project Manager, Leighton Contractors, the company worked with its sub-contractors to ensure that the safety standards that Leighton follows in its projects worldwide were adopted here also. All workers on site wear reflective vests, safety helmets and hard boots. The pre-engineered steel frames, girders and ducts for the first building have been imported from China as Leighton was racing against time, he says. For the second building, Leighton has contracted with Tiger Steel of Mumbai for the steel frames. He points to a couple of aluminium scaffold tower ladders and says they have been imported from Singapore. "We could not get them here. Unlike the conventional scaffold ladder, this can be pushed around by one person as it is light," adds Mr Maginness, as he walks you around the construction site. Both Mr Chivers and Mr Maginness explain that Leighton has brought to this project, as it did to the Nokia project, all of its expertise in building such industrial infrastructure. "What you see here is what you will see in any Leighton project anywhere else," says Mr Maginness.
Design, the difference
"You should remember we are racing against time. Our client has set us a deadline," he says. He then points out that the whole plant will have 7.5 km of storm water drains, which are being laid with large diameter pipes rather than the conventional open storm water drains found in other manufacturing plants in India. "That is because we can use cranes to lift the pipes and place them on the ground. Open drains require a large number of workers." How much time would it have taken to reach this level of construction if one went by the system followed here? Another six months and 4,500 workers, answers Mr Maginness. According to Mr Chivers, Leighton hopes to bag the contract for similar manufacturing facilities for some more multi-national companies that have announced plants near Chennai.
India plans
In his office in a busy part of the city, Mr Chivers explains that Leighton plans to build capabilities in India - right from designing such manufacturing plants to constructing and delivering them on time. He says he is also keen to bring down the number of expatriate employees of Leighton in India. Give them another year-and-a-half, the Indian employees will be able to take over the expatriates' positions. Among his list of things to do - learn Tamil and Hindi, he says and points to rapid learning books on these languages. Any local employee entering his room has to repeat the first sentence he or she has spoken, slowly in Tamil, he says. In India, Leighton has three businesses - the building division which bids for industrial plants, based in Chennai; infrastructure and mining in Delhi; and oil and gas from Mumbai.
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