Holds more than 25 life-cycle services contracts from Metso, operational in 17 states across India. Also, 70 per cent of its crushing and screening fleet is from Metso.

Dilip Buildcon Limited (DBL) is one of the largest road construction companies in India, had a turnover of about Rs 5,000 crore in 2016 and its books are ringing with orders worth Rs 19,000 crore awaiting execution. DBL is currently developing roads in more than 17 states across India and 70 per cent of its crushing and screening equipment comes from Metso which accounts for 70 per cent of the total production by DBL.

The company follows a unique but well-thought-out work strategy. Working with only top brands in the industry and deploying one brand’s equipment in one sector, to optimise servicing and parts replacement constitute the bedrock of its operational strategy. The company currently produces more than 1 lakh tonnes of aggregates a day (3 million tonnes per month) from more than 50 sites across India.

Out of these, more than 25 sites are run and managed by Metso under the Life-Cycle Services (LCS) contracts. Not only this, DBL has complete range of equipment offered by Metso in India, including 8 Lokotrack plants, 12 Nordwheeler plants and 3 Modular crushing and screening plants. This constitutes the largest fleet held by any customer under the LCS-Aggregates contracts in India.

Journey so far
DBL commenced operations in 1970’s under the leadership of Dilip Suryavanshi, who is currently Chairman and Managing Director of the company. It ventured into road projects in 2003, sighting government’s core focus and specialised schemes to develop roads across the country. The company bagged first road project order worth Rs 80 crore, to build the Sujalpur-Astha Kannod state highway (SH 41) and today has order book position of Rs 19,000 crore with projects spread across 17 states.

Having more than 24,000 employees on its rolls, the company posted profit after tax of Rs 250 crore in financial year 2016. Devendra Jain, CEO and Executive Director, DBL, has played a key role in scripting the stunning success story of the company and in creating a niche for it in the industry.

Jain shares, “Investing only in branded equipment and deploying one brand’s equipment in one sector has been the key to our growth all these years. DBL has never subcontracted any aspect of the project and today ranks number one Engineering, Procurement, Construction (EPC) company in India. The company holds the distinction of having been awarded advance-completion bonus from the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) for completing road projects ahead of time. Metso has been instrumental in helping us to achieve this mammoth target. In 2016 alone, DBL’s bonuses for finishing road building contracts ahead of time amounted to Rs 150 crore.”

After bagging first order in 2003, DBL sized up what all was required to hit the road to success and turned focus on road-building business only. Their ideology of procuring only branded equipment made the company buy its first Metso equipment in 2007: Nordwheeler two-stage plant. But maintaining focus on the core business, DBL entered into LCS contract with Metso in 2008. This enabled DBL to follow the ideology of focusing only on core business, and leaving the backbone of its business i.e. crushing, to its trusted partner Metso.

Growth trajectory
Today, DBL processes about 1 lakh tonne of aggregates a day (3 million tonnes a month) to feed the road projects spread over more than 17 states at more than 50 sites.

“We always wanted to focus on our core business i.e. building roads and leave the backend jobs to our trusted partners. Crushing is the backbone of our business and we wanted Metso, experts in crushing, to help us in this vital job. This vision helped us in having a smooth ride and we never faced any issue with crushing, as Metso was managing it well and the LCS model proved to be highly beneficial. Till date, we never faced any issue with respect to breakdown or less production as our backbone is managed efficiently by Metso. We even checked this out while running other plants on non-LCS model and found that LCS model is always more fruitful in comparison to running it ourselves,” Jain says.

Today, DBL has more than 25 LCS contracts in operation at different locations which are run and managed by Metso. The concept of signing LCS contract at the time of purchasing the plant has been beneficial for DBL. It resulted in increased production, minimised costs, reduced downtime and the equipment being maintained by experts, warding off any scope for any losses.

“We were pioneers in India in our sector in taking full AMC (Annual Maintenance Contracts) package from Metso, now termed as LCS, from the moment we bought their equipment. Now we have full LCS which means my eight-year-old and ten-year-old crushers are processing same volume and quality of material as my new crushers. It was because of our backward integration approach, to not to concentrate on crushing and let Metso do it for us, that enabled us to achieve the desired production levels on time and complete projects ahead of schedule,” shared Jain.

A decade of valuable partnership
Kamal Pahuja, Vice President, Mining & Aggregates, Metso India adds, “DBL is very aggressive in execution of their jobs and they were very clear that they don’t want to spend their energy on crushing aggregate, because at the end of the day aggregate availability is very important when you are executing a road job and want to finish your road jobs ahead of time. They wanted to, firstly have the best equipment available but they didn’t want to burden themselves with the objective of maintaining the plant. They were more concerned with focusing on their strength, which is building roads and leaving to others to ensure that aggregate is available at the right time at the right cost.”

Jain says, “With the passage of time, our relations have developed and there have been continuous discussions and exchange of knowledge between us. Metso, which upgraded its crushers as per our recommendations, has been continuously evolving by bringing in innovations in the shape of new crushers, services, etc. It shows that Metso has kept pace with changing times and our requirements.”

Sighting a good and great future for Metso and DBL in the years to come, Jain gives full credit to the Metso people for these 10 glorious years of success and faith. “I give full credit to Metso people for the successful and glorious 10 years we have been together. This long-lasting relationship with Metso was made possible due to the immense support we received from all levels of Metso management. I see a long-term vision for us being together and growing together in the times to come and working as one to be number one in the industry,” Jain concludes.