Today, pre-engineered buildings are widely accepted as integral part in setting-up facilities for automobile manufacturing. This case study highlights Interarch’s hands-on experience in providing PEBs for Tata Motors.

Tata Motors, understanding their limitations to provide high quality personal vehicles from their Pune truck manufacturing units, took their passenger car dreams to Uttarakhand in early 2004 with a mega land acquisition and plans to build the largest Greenfield automotive project in the history of the company and India. Interarch won the bid and turnkey contract to execute the Greenfield pre-engineered building project for the Uttarakhand project.

Interarch’s and Tata Motors association dates back to the 1990’s, when Interarch started working with the company for roofing projects for their Pune facilities. Since then, over the last two decades, Interach has been actively involved in completion of pre-engineered structures for five manufacturing units for Tata Motors across various locations in the country.

In Uttarakhand, Interarch collaborated with TATA Motors and with the help of their veteran in‑house planning designed concepts for a completely new manufacturing facility that would cover almost 250,000 sq. meters of production space were made ready. All buildings had to be designed from scratch keeping in mind the stringent reqiurements and time limitations of the manufacturer.

Construction work on their first manufacturing facility in was started in early 2006 in Pantnagar. This facility would cater to the production of their new innovative ‘Tata Ace’ truck utility vehicle platform. The timeline for the plant required them to be up and running in under 12 months, for first production of the new Ace Truck.

Interarch started work with TATA motors at Pantnagar, and set up the entire facility in under 10 months that was fit out in time and the first test cars rolled out in 12 months as planned.

Speed of Construction
For any automotive manufacturing facility – right from the point you break ground for construction, the clock starts ticking for the time one can start production and hence make the unit economically viable. Interarch’s PEB solutions are the most suited and proven structures to be able to meet these tight deadlines without compromising on quality.

Interarch’s manufacturing facility at Pantnagar took the challenge of manufacturing the complete plant for Tata Motors given all the above constraints. A total of 10 engineers, 15 supervisors along with 800 workers were on the job over the period to ensure that quality was not compromised and roll out at the earliest The project which was erected in record time, was handed over to begin operations in 2 months post completion with a total of 16000 MT of steel supplied and erected and 354,000 Sq. M. of roof supplied and installed at the Pantnagar facility.

TATA Motors – Paint Shops at Pantnagar & Singur
The Paint shop at the facility which also is the largest paint shop in Asia is 250 m long and has a height of 25 metres.

To save time, Interarch manufactured all the building sections in-house in the Pantnagar factory and transported them to the construction site overnight in separate lots. Close to over 300,000 parts and sections were transported to site along with hardware for assembly during the course of the project execution.

Once the material reached the site, each part and piece for the massive structure of the manufacturing facility was put in line under a project manager along with 10 engineers and 15 supervisors. The key highlights for the structure involved the creation of a mezzanine with two floors along with the conveyor corridor that connected the assembly shop to the paint shop and the engine shop. All site coordination was done by Interarch from its Central Control at the location.

The State-of-the-art facilities include weld shops, paint shops, engine and gear box shops and assembly lines. TATA Motors has invested close to Rs. 1000 crores in the plant. Vendors for the vehicle have made additional investments to set up their plants in the vendor park adjoining the plant. The operation has generated about 7,500 direct and indirect jobs in the plant, among vendors and service providers in the area.

This project reflects Interarch’s ability to execute turn-key solutions from design, manufacture, supply, logistics and project handling.
The ability of Interarch to complete the project under the strict safety and quality guidelines, ensured completion of the project within stipulated time even after facing many challenging situations.

Spotlight: TATA Nano & ACE Manufacturing Facility
The much spoken about Singur plant of Tata motors from where the Tata Nano was to be manufactured, was erected in a record time of 6 months and further finishing took 3 months despite the fact that Interarch faced problems like loose soil and flooding of the entire paint shop and engine shop.

However, unfortunately, with all the problems that engulfed the Singur plants operation, Interarch also played a key role in further expansion of the Pant Nagar plant in Uttarakhand which eventually became the location for rolling out the Tata Nano and Tata Ace.

Expansion
After the Singur plant was stalled, it became pertinent for Tata to increase the capacity of the Pantnagar plant in the least possible time, as the roll out plan for the Nano had to begin.

Interarch has since then built further expansion phases at the Pantnagar facility to cater to the increasing capacity demands at the production factility.

Group Projects
Interarch has also executed many manufacturing plants for machine tools and heavy automotive for TATA group companies. The Tal Manufacturing Solution Ltd. plant in Nagpur, a sister company of TATA, was built by Interarch. Further, Interarch has also executed the manufacturing plant for Marcopolo buses in Dharwad, a manufacturing facility for earth moving and mining equipment for Telco Construction Equipment Company, Tata Motors Facilities in Bangalore and Lucknow, and facilities for the TATA vendor parks – Ancillary units that feed and support all the manufacturing facilities.