Tekla fits perfectly for Inventaa’s Precast projects

Inventaa Industries, which was set up in the year 1979 for bulk manufacturing of drugs, subsequently diversified into ‘building material’ products. They have set up four precast plants in India with a vision to be the most innovative, sustainable, reliable producer, manufacturer, service & solution provider in the chosen verticals. Over all their plants, Inventaa has an installed capacity to produce 6 million sq. ft. (built up area) of buildings annually. Their largest integrated production facility is located in Keesara, Andhra Pradesh. This facility produces Precast Concrete Elements, AAC Blocks and Interlocking Pavers.

Besides producing precast elements, Inventaa has been successfully delivering turnkey building construction projects for a wide variety of segments such as residential, commercial, industrial, hospitals, hotels and any other such buildings. They also supply their precast structural and non-structural elements, AAC Blocks and Interlocking Paver blocks to other large construction projects.

18,810 Precast Elements - One Herculean Project

The Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) awarded Inventaa with the construction of a large-scale residential project comprising of 33 Blocks of 5-storey apartment units in the city of Bhubaneswar in Odisha. 

The structural system for the project was the precast wall-frame system which comprised of precast reinforced solid concrete structural walls, room-size slab solution, beams and staircases. Besides precast, reinforced pergolas were provided at the terrace level as a unique architectural feature of the building and the foundation arrangement was of strip footings for all structural precast walls. While the footings were a cast-in-situ system, the walls were made of prefabricated elements for the more controlled, site-based execution requirements. The structural material consumption of a single building, including the foundation, grade slab and complete superstructure was, 726 cubic metres of concrete & 75 metric tons of reinforcement. Multiply that with 33 blocks and we begin to realise the sheer size of this massive project that came with many more additional challenges.

“Tekla’s BIM solution was and is the best fit for all our requirements throughout the complete life cycle of the project, from the design to procurement, production, execution and finally monitoring phases of the project. We have also had the flexibility to fine-tune and customize Tekla to fit perfectly within our processes and standards and in fact, improve upon them by leaps and bounds. This flexibility of the software allows organizations to easily adopt Tekla either partially or fully based on their existing processes & workflows. It is an extremely efficient solution for all types of precast projects, and we are happy to strongly recommend Tekla to our precast industry.”       

Mr. Sumedh Gupta, General Manager, Inventaa Industries

Massive Project, Tiny Worksite Spaces and Unique Design Challenges

The compact land space designated for the construction of this mass housing project was perhaps the biggest challenge. The tight block layouts at various parts and narrow approach for elements and crane positioning further added on to the already restricted site-space challenge.

The size of the project and the vast volume of construction involved made sure that the possibility of conflicts or clashes on-site and the resultant rework was ever-present and was at its peak. On the other hand, the project schedule hardly had any scope for errors & rework which could push the team to miss the pre-decided project delivery deadline and adversely affect the budget and hence the profitability of the project.

Further, the sunken slabs required for all the toilets had added a plethora of challenges for all teams involved in the project. These sunken slabs involved - floor diaphragm action & integrity connections of the precast element from the engineering aspect and complex precast elements for intermediate attachments & 3D slabs requirement from the production aspect.

Tekla - That Perfectly Fitting Piece in the project, from Design to Execution

For Inventaa, Tekla was the definitive choice to successfully deliver this project that came with a multitude of challenges. Tekla enabled the stakeholders to control the project in a centralized manner right from efficient design to planning, monitoring and improving upon the execution of the project on-site. Inventaa’s in-house design team relied on Tekla to design the buildings suitable for precast concrete construction. With this value-engineering, Inventaa was able to provide extra 10% carpet area within the same budget.

Recalling the experience, Mr. Satyanarayana C, Managing Director, Inventaa Industries said “At Inventaa, we always look to digitize the entire construction process to the maximum possible extent. The project in discussion here was completely handled in-house including the development of the architectural concept, structural engineering/design, production of the precast elements, installation of precast elements with all the requisite structural work at the site, and finally the installation of services (MEP) and architectural finishing. Tekla held our hand through all of these phases which would have otherwise been very difficult to manage by using a dozen different applications”

This is why Inventaa strongly recommends Tekla for Precast 

Multitude of Benefits from the Accurate 3D Design Model Generation:

Tekla enabled the team to generate highly accurate & reliable 3D engineering design models. These constructible 3D models were then used by the team to extract all up-to-date production and execution drawings and details for the plant production and on-site execution activities. The centralized 3D model was also successfully leveraged in production planning by plugging in the execution schedule. The materials required for the project were also accurately extracted and monitored from the same Tekla model, which helped to also tie-in the cost dimension to the 3D models.

Project Scheduling & Monitoring at One Place:

All production activities and site execution processes were being monitored on the schedule generated on Tekla, and it was actively plugged into the BIM workflow, giving a clear picture of the project to all the teams and the management involved. By enabling the stakeholders to schedule the complete project timeline elaborately, Tekla helped in time-bound project completion and saving a significant number of work hours. The ease of project scheduling and controlling also enhanced the on-site work-efficiency. For example, erection sequencing which would typically take 4 days for a typical tower, took less than a day to complete.

Seamless and Real-time Cloud-Based Collaboration:

Apart from the vast size and volume of the construction, the project also involved a large number of stakeholders and various teams specializing in different aspects of the project. Unobstructed and truly real-time collaboration was the most critical requirement to avoid errors, clashes and ultimately rework. Higher number of errors and reworks could not only derail the on-time project delivery but would have also hampered the profitability of the project. However, Tekla facilitated a smooth, real-time and multimodal collaboration among the different stakeholders, which significantly curtailed the number of RFIs.

Optimization of Design, Rationalization of Manpower & its Associated Costs:

With Tekla, the entire 3D model was generated by 1 person, who could further efficiently extract all production and execution drawings out of the same 3D model, which otherwise requires 2-3 people or at times even more, had we been working on any 2D drafting process. Working with Tekla in 3D helped in controlling and optimizing the entire design process efficiently to ensure that all clashes were identified and rectified in the office itself instead of on-site and the most suitable design options were evaluated & fixed upon easily.

Tekla for Precast Industry: Any Project, Any Challenge

The ease of project specific customizations offered by Tekla software makes it a boon for the construction industry, which is witnessing rapid diversification. Apart from the flexibility, Tekla provides a complete solution for all kinds of projects – simple or complex, small or large-scale – which makes it the best in the business. Tekla software is the most efficient and effective solution for the universe of the precast concrete construction industry.