09 Aug 2019
Inaugurates its first fully-integrated off-site manufacturing plant in Hyderabad
- The factory, which is spread over 50 acre, is projected to be completed by March 2020.
- This will be Katerra’s second factory in India after its factory at Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu.
- Katerra to provide vocational and technical training programme to the workers to help build long-term future careers.
Katerra, a leading design and technology driven global construction company, broke ground on its first fully integrated off-site manufacturing plant at Hyderabad recently. Projected to get completed by March 2020, the factory will deliver 8 million sq ft of building components every year through robotic assembly line production. The ground-breaking ceremony was attended by Ash Bhardwaj, President Asia and Middle East, Katerra; Nejeeb Khan, Head Design & Business Strategy in India, Katerra; and Ravi Bhat, Head of Operations, India and Middle East, Katerra.
After setting up 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 State.
Commenting on the ground-breaking of the factory, Ash Bhardwaj, President Asia and Middle East, Katerra, “Today, every other MNC wishes to have their presence in India which indicates that there will be 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 in India owing to growing urbanisation. Thus, technology-driven offsite manufacturing will help catering 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 Bangalore, we now have a factory in Hyderabad to service our clients in the Southern part of India. Going forward we have plans 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 North market.”
Katerra’s cutting-edge technology offers a diverse range of benefits in the construction space as the end products are durable, sustainable, better designed with speedy process and precision. Committed to follow sustainable practices, Katerra consumes 30 per cent less water and materials across all its projects. The factory manufactured and assembly onsite approach ensures minimal dust pollution and waste on-site and other resources with zero waste production. 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 to that, Katerra will also set up 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.
Sharing his insights on the need for technology driven construction in India, Nejeeb Khan, Head Design & Business Strategy in India, Katerra, “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 new and innovative solutions in India that need to be adapted to cater to the country’s growing demand for overall infrastructure development. We believe India has a tremendous potential of replicating some of the global construction models and build beautiful structures in both commercial and residential sectors.”
A Silicon Valley technology driven, offsite construction start-up, Katerra has grown rapidly since 2015. Today, the company has over 6,000 employees, six operational factories and 700+ projects in progress across India and America. Katerra has strong business plans to rapidly expand its operations in the Indian market aiming to revolutionise its construction sector by introducing advanced global practices.
