Katerra has broken ground on its first fully integrated off-site manufacturing plant at Hyderabad. Projected to get completed by March 2020, the factory will deliver 8 million square feet of building components every year through robotic assembly line production. The ceremony was attended by Ash Bhardwaj, President Asia and Middle East, Katerra, Nejeeb Khan, Head Design & Business Strategy in India, Katerra and Ravi Bhat, Head of Operations, India and Middle East, Katerra.

After setting up factory campus at Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu and a movable onsite factory in Lucknow, this will be Katerra’s second automated factory in India. The factory will help bring Katerra’s global technology solutions to construct residential projects, commercial office buildings, hotels, malls, hospitals, schools and industrial parks across the state of Telangana.

Commenting on the ground-breaking of the factory, Bhardwaj, said, “Today, every other MNC wishes to have their presence in India which indicates that there will be huge requirement for offices and tech parks across the country in the coming years. Alongside, the need for technology driven construction in retail, housing, education institutions and hospitals will also rise in India owing to growing urbanization. Thus, technology driven offsite manufacturing will help catering to this demand by reducing delivery time by up to two-third, thereby speeding up the construction process. Apart from our factory at Krishnagiri near Bangalore, we now have a factory in Hyderabad to service our clients in the Southern part of India. Going forward we have plans to invest in setting up factories in the Mumbai-Pune region in the later part of the year, followed by a plant in NCR to cover the North market.”

Katerra’s technology offers a diverse range of benefits in the construction space as the end products are durable, sustainable, better designed with speedy process and precision. Committed to follow sustainable practices, the company consumes 30 per cent less water and materials across all its projects, the company said in a statement. The factory manufactured and assembly onsite approach ensures minimal dust pollution and waste on-site and other resources with zero waste production. Katerra will also provide end-to-end building services ranging from completed 3D rooms, walls, beams, columns, hollow core slabs, double walls, modular MEP and plug and play bathroom pods.

Katerra is poised to create over 1,000 jobs and over 7,000 additional jobs across various jobsite and auxiliary services. In addition to that, the company will also set up vocational training centre to upskill the workforce and will focus on providing them technical training with an aim to help them build long-term careers.

Sharing his insights on the need for technology driven construction in India, Khan said, “Across the globe, Data Driven Design, Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA), Modular Construction, Offsite Manufacturing, Intelligent Buildings and Construction Software are gaining prominence in order to construct faster and better structures. Through Katerra, we are introducing such new and innovative solutions in India that need to be adapted to cater to the country’s growing demand for overall infrastructure development. We believe, India has a tremendous potential of replicating some of the global construction models and build beautiful structures in both commercial and residential sectors.”