Global construction company Katerra inaugurated its first fully integrated off-site manufacturing plant in Hyderabad, spread over 50 acre. Estimated to be completed by March 2020, the factory will utilise its robotic assembly line production to deliver 8 million sq ft of building components annually. After setting up a factory campus at Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu and a movable onsite factory in Lucknow, this will be Katerra’s second state-of-the-art, automated factory in India. The factory will help bring Katerra’s unique global technology solutions to construct residential projects, commercial office buildings, hotels, malls, hospitals, schools and industrial parks across Telangana.Speaking on the ground-breaking of the factory, Ash Bhardwaj, President Asia and Middle East, Katerra, said, “Today, every other MNC wishes to have its presence in India, which indicates that there will be a 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 owing to growing urbanisation. Thus, technology-driven offsite manufacturing will help cater 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 Bengaluru, we now have a factory in Hyderabad to service our clients in southern India. We plan 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 northern market.” Sharing his insights on the need for technology driven construction in India, Nejeeb Khan, Head-Design & Business Strategy in India, Katerra, 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 innovative solutions in India that need to be adapted to cater to the country’s growing demand for overall infrastructure development. We believe that India has tremendous potential of replicating some of the global construction models and build beautiful structures in both commercial and residential sectors.”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, it will also set up a 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.