Ashok Khemlani, Chairman, Cradle Runways (India) Pvt. Ltd. In an Interview with B2B Purchase 

Could you provide us with an overview of your primary façade maintenance solutions for industrial and infrastructure projects?

 Facades, in a road project come into the picture, when you have crossings of water bodies and bridges. Plain bridges, like Bombay Bridge, don’t have wired support, with ropes that can actually move and rotate on the bridge carrying the load and coming back safely. These ropes require high maintenance. as the top and bottom come down and carry the bridge load, these ropes are to be maintained so as to avoid any infiltration of any oily, sticky substance into them. So, we have cleaning technology and methodology to reach the to anchor point right from the bridge surface.

Why do you require maintenance of the façade and access? 

Over a period of 15-20 years, the bridge is damaged and you require access. Some of the good bridges have access provided the bridge has to be painted and the bridge will have to be taken care of from the bottom. This paint further protects the bridge from the nasty environment, which increases the load on the top, especially during the peak time of day. So, it’s the surface that comes under pressure. This is usually performed with the help of a ladder and hanging, which are movable and permanently fixed, subjected to the length and width of the bridge. The most difficult part comes when it comes to the maintenance of oil tanks. To build these tanks, we need platforms anchored on the top that are movable so as to have access to the top and to the lower end to build it appropriately. While installing systems at the airport, we need movable systems that allow us to access and install them correctly. 

How much safer are your solutions for tall building maintenance? 

Everything is a skyscraper. Most of the buildings are tall, but a construction or a building that goes over 200 meters, are termed as super tall. These super tall buildings do require external cleaning. The key critical aspect here is that when you are at a height of 200 meters, that amounts to an 80-storey building, it becomes difficult to open the window for much time, all one can do is, open the sliding window a little just to ensure intake of fresh air, otherwise, it is not advised to open the window at that height of a building but you require maintenance more than that. Moreover, in super tall buildings, it’s essential to provide water supply systems, sewage, among the others, along with their maintenance systems. 

When you are looking at the façade of tall and super-tall buildings, there are two critical concerns: wind velocity and When you’re hanging from a cleaning façade platform in high wind, you’ll need a rope to come down straight from the platform so you can clean the building corners even with the high wind. Basically, you also need vertical movement access to the locations through the hanging. For this, we have façade restrain systems. Here, the building has restraint pins, and you need to look at the rope and put it in the building while coming down to ensure that your cradle and platform are under restrain and safe, and aren’t moving. I think any building above 60 m in height must have a restrain system, and it’s mandatory as per European and British standards. That’s a requirement of a European norm or British standard, but we have yet to prescribe standards for facades. The Indian government has prescribed norms as per the wind velocity that differ in every city, which itself is a standard to be maintained in terms of installing restrain systems on façade cleaning. We provide specialised equipment and systems where our façade window cleaners know how to connect the rope and the hangings in a building for safe cleaning. We manufacture and supply this special equipment for cleaning and maintenance in locations like ATC towers where the wind velocity is under 10 and 20 metres. And because the wind directly reaches the anchorage, it becomes difficult; for this reason, we provide an anchor system as well as restrain systems to keep the platform vertical. For us, safety comes first, and that’s where it comes to the restrain systems. Safety is also defined by the type of solutions you provide on your platforms. In either of his buildings, when you say how safe your solution was, the safety comes from the restraint. Safety also comes from the type of safety you provide on the platforms. One of the key things is that in the case of bar failure, you should be able to come down with just one lever at a slow speed, not just roll down at a slower speed so that you’re able to reach the bottom. These systems are also helpful during fire accidents.

 The majority of facade access options are exposed to the outside environment. What makes you durable enough to face everything?

 The environment has to be dealt with by all of us. Here, we must be equipped with appropriate systems suitable for all weather conditions. For instance, we provide brackets or some steel particles that are hot-dipped galvanised up to a thickness of 25mm. In such cases, if we do not galvanise them, they will be torn and get rustic due to the climate differences. Moreover, the building occupants won’t check the weather conditions and the building conditions, so, ultimately, it’s our responsibility to ensure protection for every metal used in the entire process. To maintain these, we have anodised aluminium, powder-coated aluminium, hot galvanised steel, weather-resistant steel, etc. A lot of suppliers aren’t really aware that it’s imperative to have a bolt grounded to 70 grades, which is a special type of stillness. 

What are the features of your current underwriting projects? What kind of projects are you planning to undertake in 2022? 

I have been doing business and doing projects for 30 years. And I can say that every project or every airport has its own signature beauty. Our job here is to maintain that on a regular basis. Since it’s our job, we are invariably called by architects to work on projects that make us restless and sleepless until we deliver quality results. Some critically designed structures bring more difficulties for us, but we efficiently manage them.

 Presently, we are working on projects like Altair–Colombo, which are twin buildings, one straight and the other one curved. It is one of the most iconic buildings in the world. I am also doing ITC in Colombo, where between the two buildings there’s a bridge. On that bridge, there are two swimming pools. It’s a huge bridge, about 52 metres long, a huge bridge, and we have to reach under the bridge. Another project is the IICC India International Convention Centre (Delhi), the largest single government project.