“We have a special quality control department and decided some benchmarks which are used across the globe to specify the quality,” says Sachin R Biyani, Managing Director, Suroj Group

Suroj Group, one of the first to launch concept of modular prefab in India, designs its manufacturing capacity as required by the market. In an exclusive interview with B2B Purchase, Sachin R Biyani shares how he made this possible.

Suroj has gradually established itself in the prefab industry. How do you look at the acceptance of prefab structures in India?I am in construction industry for nearly two decades. In this period, I always felt the dire need of organised site office or labour camp along with all required amenities in the same. In my visits to various countries in Europe and South-East Asia, I was always eager to study: how construction industry is managing their site offices or labour camps with required amenities. In these visits, I observed various prefab technologies and planned to use one of the technologies for our site. In 2011, I purchased such office and staff accommodation structure from some South-East Asian countries and used the same for our own project. After using the same, I invited various senior technocrats in construction industry and shown the same to them and asked their opinions. All these seniors appreciated my efforts and encouraged me to bring this technology to our country. This helped me to start a new venture along with some of my colleagues to manufacture such modular prefab structures at our plant in Pune. The concept of modular prefab is as such new to our industry, but industry is gradually accepting this technology, and I am receiving very encouraging response for such structures.

What are the products and solutions you offer?
My main thrust is labour camps and project office buildings at construction sites. Labours at site are supposed to stay very close to site to save their travelling time and energy which can be used for real work. Today, I am providing labour camps with all required amenities like electricity, toilet blocks and project office with attached toilets and canteen buildings for staff. These solutions help construction workers and staff save their time, money and energy to give their best for the work.

Brief us on the unique features of your prefabs.
There are various unique features of our prefab system. The best feature is the structure is made of lightweight insulated profiled wall and roof panels which provide environment protection and energy efficiency. Apart from that, these structures are designed in such a way that one structure can be dismantled and reassembled and used no of times which not only saves capital cost of the user, but number of repetitions lowers cost on the infrastructures. The basic sandwich panels manufactured by us are durable and temperature resistant, promoting resistance to geographic and weather conditions.

What are the application areas of prefabs offered by you?
The main areas of application are work accommodation, project office, project dining/kitchen facility, labour quarters, disaster management camps, school and training centres, and primary health centres.

Are you using any innovative technology or concept to provide efficiency at a low cost?
Basically, our product is based on innovation. Being the temporary construction, the sector was not focussed earlier. We designed our system on the modular basis. All the components required in  the system are manufactured in house, and we do not outsource any anything.

The system is designed using the low gauge mild steel sheets with optimisation in design. All these efforts keep the product cost low as compared to the other available products in the market.

How do you assure the quality of your modular structures?
We have a special quality control department and decided some benchmarks which are used across the globe to specify the quality.

Based on these benchmarks, we have a team which checks the quality of material before despatch at site and a separate team which goes to site after installation of structures at site. We periodically visit our client’s sites to check the status of structures provided by us and offer them free service to maintain the quality.

Could you brief us on your manufacturing capabilities?
Being the first manufacturer in this kind of structure, we designed our manufacturing capacity as required by the market. Presently, we can supply 50,000-sq.-feet material on monthly basis.