HCC beats its own world record in IT implementation in J&K

Company News

Mumbai, June 19

Hindustan Construction Company Ltd (HCC), India’s leading construction and infrastructure development company, has gone live with SAP at its hydro-electric project site locations in Chutak (10,000 feet above sea level) and Nimoo Bazgo (11,000 feet) in Jammu & Kashmir State. These are the highest SAP implementation locations in the world (the earlier record was at 6,800 ft above sea level in the Rocky Mountains, US).

HCC is among the first to engage in the process of implementing SAP across all its 35 offices and site locations across the country, a feat rare among infrastructure construction companies in India. At Chutak and Nimoo Bazgo, the difficult terrain and hostile weather conditions made the SAP implementation far more challenging and were completed before the roads became snowbound in winter.

The SAP implementation project of the IT group of the company, named Sankalp, ensures that all HCC's offices and sites continuously have access to an integrated database online. The database includes information about project planning and execution, equipment availability and condition, accounts and finance, costing, procurement, stores and overall material movement, quality and HR & payroll on a minute-to-minute basis.

In the construction business, where sites are far-flung and often in remote places, on-time allocation of resources is critical to smooth functioning. SAP will allow the status and progress of each project to be monitored constantly to boost efficiency, maintain just-in-time inventory and permit course correction or draw support as needed to meet project completion targets. SAP will provide one window for supply chain management across the organization, reducing overall cycle time and hence costs. The ability to see the fund position on a dynamic basis will be a boon to project managers and accountants at HCC.

"The top management of HCC is totally committed to using information technology in the construction business to lay the foundation of growth for the future. Besides enhancing productivity and containing costs, it will provide HCC a competitive advantage and let us deliver added value to our customers," said Satish Pendse, Chief Information Officer, HCC.

The Sankalp team faced several challenges during implementation and in its effort to maintain SAP uptime of 99.98 per cent. Due to the high altitude, people tire quicker. Training sessions for engineers in such conditions were monitored and medical services were made available. A small team has been trained onsite to ensure that the SAP system is implemented and maintained without a break.

On the hardware side two VSAT systems were chosen with one back-up as a precaution. The implementation was completed at both sites with KU Band systems and another VSAT system with extended C band was installed along with de-icing kit (to melt the snow automatically in case of heavy snow fall).

For VSAT as well as other SAP hardware, an earth neutral voltage of 1 needs to be maintained, but this region has a much higher voltage (5), which could cause damage to the equipment. Hence special earth pits were created with charcoal dust and salt. These pits have to be watered every day to maintain the earth neutral voltage.

Special quality cables were deployed for networking as the temperature variance is extremely high (+45 degree to –45 degree) and would have caused ordinary cables to crack.

Project sites like those in J&K are testing grounds for the company's IT initiative. Men and material have to confront harsh topography and severe weather conditions in winter. Moving large equipment typical of construction sites to these inaccessible areas can be daunting. The implementation of innovative technology like SAP will help HCC's project managers to anticipate such situations much more easily and source their requirements well in advance.

For further information:

Sandeep Sawant

Hindustan Construction Company Ltd

+91 22 2577 5959

Mobile: +91 98339 92874

Email: sandeep.sawant@hccindia.co.in

Abhinav K. Srivastava

Comma Consulting

+91 22 40027111/2

Mobile +91 98923 23750

Email: abhinav.srivastava@comma.in