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Smart Warehousing

   Friday, 8th January 2021

 

Zamil Steel Buildings India Pvt. Ltd. started operations in 2008 and has supplied more than 2000 projects, i.e. 15,000 buildings, with an approximate area of 8 million M2 of complete PEB building. The Pune facility is on a total area of 87,000 square meters and is capable of producing complete pre-engineered buildings with the production capacity of 100,000 MT per annum. The facility is already producing and supplying high-end pre-engineered steel buildings to various customers in all over India. In an exclusive interview to CONSTRUCTION OPPORTUNITIES, ALAKESH ROY, MD, ZAMIL STEEL BUILDINGS INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED, speaks about the latest trends in the warehousing industry, impact of Covid- 19, his company's offerings and a lot more.

Briefly give us an overview of the Indian Warehousing sector, latest trends and sector challenges.

Warehousing sector has been growing phenomenally well in the country since last few years. The credit for this also goes to the government's business-friendly policies and parallel infrastructural developments, which have helped the warehousing sector to grow at never-seen-before pace. I am proud to share with you that post GST implementation, warehousing sector is progressing at pace of 30-40% year-on-year and this is just the beginning. In some pockets, it's doubling every year. We are yet to witness the growth potential the sector holds in its entirety.

What has been the impact of Covid-19 on the performance of your company and what are your strategies to overcome these sluggish market conditions and expand market share.

To be honest, despite the initial knee-jerk moment owing to the sudden lockdown and the shelved infrastructure projects, I don't see any negative business sentiments. As far as Zamil Steel is concerned, we are back to capturing 80-90% of pre-covid business. We have augmented capacity of our plant as well with the addition of new lines and facilities, which will help us grow our business exponentially. I believe this is also because of the warehousing sector's inherent peculiarities which makes it resilient to such unprecedented shocks. At a time when the entire business dynamic came to a standstill, it was the supply chain industry which was running day and night to serve the essential needs of the country and to make it happen, warehouses across the country were running non-stop, albeit facing the manpower challenges due to covid scare and heightened sanitization and hygiene scrutiny.

Going with the flow, we were also able to keep up with our planned projects development and helping customers to tide through the crisis. We are yet to see the impact of price of raw materials specially steel has on the warehousing sector because warehousing is heavily price sensitive industry with respect to rental and leasing. Otherwise, the sector is quite buoyant. As part of our diversification strategy, we want to be in all the segments where steel is being used not only PEB, be it structure, be it tubular, buildings for office space, buildings for residential applications, low cost housing, etc. that's the whole intent with which we have invested in new machinery. We are proud to say this that we are the only company in the PEB space who has made such rapid strides in the year 2020.

Detail us about the products / solutions offered by your company for the warehousing sector and your emphasis on technology, research, design and innovation?

We have our in-house patented technology - MaxSEAM. The MaxSEAM roof system is one of the strongest and most weather-tight standing seam roof systems available in the industry today. The 360 deg. Seam along the side laps of the panel; the special Articulating clip, ArtiFloat; and the carefully engineered system for strength, durability and weatherability are a few of its outstanding features. The MaxSEAM roof system acts as a monolithic membrane that completely protects your buildings. It is the most recommended roof systems for tropical, rainy, snowy or high wind (cyclonic) regions. MaxSEAM is also offered as an Ultimate Re-roofing solution allowing for installation over an existing through-fastened rib type roof without removing the existing roof panels.

What are the USP's of your products Vis-à-vis competition?

We believe in offering our customers CAPABILITY over CAPACITIES. Our pre-engineered building system is unmatched in its speed and value. Buildings, to suit specific needs, are designed, engineered, manufactured and shipped in less than 8 weeks and at a cost that is 30% lower than that of the cost of conventional steel buildings (when compared to speed of occupancy and space usability). Just recently APL Apollo Tubes (APL) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with us to develop a market for pre-engineered steel buildings (PEB) made from structural steel tubes. We are the thought leaders in the industry and we would keep on reinventing our product offerings to sustain our leadership position.

Could you offer information about your manufacturing units, current capacities, investments and planned upgrades?

Our manufacturing facility in Pune is capable of producing complete pre-engineered buildings (PEBs) of 80,000MT augmented by another 20,000MT structural steel fabrication per annum. Zamil has been able to make inroads into the global soil as well. We have supplied over 90,000 steel structures across 90 countries. Our global operations exist in numerous countries across the world, right from Egypt and all the way to Vietnam. Even in the ongoing scenario, we have expanded our capacities and capabilities in Vietnam and India. Because we believe these two economies will grow in short term as well as long term. In Vietnam, we have expanded our capacity by almost 50%. In India, we are augmenting in terms of projects being executed, which also includes high-rise and tubular structures. In the next 12-18 months, we will see a huge surge in demand. The Covid pandemic has made us realize our aspirations and realign our business strategies accordingly. Going ahead, we are also poised about Indonesian market and are keenly observing the development pace over there to set up and expand base.

Future outlook for the industry and from a company perspective...

For us, Covid has proved to be an opportunity in disguise as this is the time for introspection and bring a New Normal for the entire industry. The last few months have made us realize that the on-site fabrication for the construction sector will reduce and the manpower usage will reduce. More and more use of automated machinery and factory manufactured products will take place in the construction sector. I feel happy to share with you that At Zamil Steel, we are fully digitized and there is no movement of paper. Everything is done through a system.

Although we are operating on the Oracle 12 platform currently, we will be upgrading our system to Oracle fusion in the future. Other companies in India too have digitized their operations for smooth operations. In the wake of AI and technological finesse, system-oriented automation will lead the way in PEB manufacturing processes and towards Industry 4.0. On-site innovations will result in use of lesser manpower and require only a crane and formwork to get assembled one after another in a constructive format.