We offer tailor-made RMC solutions designed to meet the specific requirements of each project
India is taking a giant leap in infrastructure development. What is the role RMC is contributing in this development?
Considering growing infrastructure demands, the demand for Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) stands at a pivotal point. Ongoing mega trends such as urbanization, sustainable construction, and the need for rapid project completion, have created tremendous scope and opportunities for the RMC industry. The RMC concrete industry is on the cusp of a major transformation, with a focus on sustainability, efficiency, and innovation. New product developments and technologies such as smart concrete, 3D concrete printing, low carbon concrete and self-healing concrete, are expected to revolutionize the way we construct buildings and infrastructure. At Godrej Construction, we are strategically aligning ourselves with these trends. We plan to capitalize on these opportunities, aligning with our core values of environment stewardship, by focusing on developing specialised products in our sustainable range of TUFF Concrete solutions, that cater to specific infrastructure needs, ensuring our clients receive the most efficient and reliable products.
Please take us through your recently introduced RMC portfolios. How are these portfolios assisting in faster completion of infrastructure projects?
Environmental stewardship is at the core of our operations. To minimize our carbon footprint, we have implemented eco-friendly production processes and energy-efficient technologies. We adhere to stringent waste management protocols, recycling water and other materials to reduce waste. The Godrej TUFF brand offers a breakthrough range of customised and environmentally conscious products in construction materials. Godrej Construction has received the ‘Green Pro’ certificate from Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) for their RMC products such as Enviro TUFF, Xtra TUFF, Easy TUFF. Enviro TUFF is a eco-friendly concrete mix produced by blending industrial by-products like recycled Fly Ash or Grounded Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS) which helps lower the carbon footprint of a project and also improve its Green Building Rating. Similarly, we provide Xtra TUFF, a high strength concrete variant, developed using multiple blends of cementitious materials, resulting in dense refine micro-structures. Xtra TUFF is used in structures that require thinner sections of RCC Beams and columns, for eg, high-rise towers. Our 4 RMC plants in the Mumbai-MMR & Pune region have been commended with the ‘Green Pro’ certification by Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). Godrej Construction have deployed Circular Economy design principles of ‘Recover, Recycle and Rebuild’ for recycling concrete debris to produce prefabricated concrete products such as building blocks, pavers, culverts, ducts and other customised precast concrete products. Godrej Construction has set up an automated Recycled Concrete Materials (RCM) manufacturing plant at Vikhroli, Mumbai. This industrial plant manufactures concrete blocks for walls and pavers using concrete debris recycled from demolished concrete structures from building and infrastructure projects, which would otherwise end up in overflowing city landfills. By implementing circular economy principles, we have recycled over 30,000 metric tonnes of concrete debris so far.
RMC is largely considered as an unorganized market where these players corner a major chunk of revenue. In light of this, what would be your strategy to increase your market share?
Godrej Construction is a niche ready mix concrete player, without any forward or backward integration to cement manufacturing or aggregate mining as business. Thus, our TUFF range of concrete solutions are developed, focusing on customised concrete solutions, strength with sustainability and smart services. We understand that every construction project is unique. That’s why we offer tailor-made RMC solutions designed to meet the specific requirements of each project. Our team of experienced engineers works closely with clients to understand their needs comprehensively. Through this collaborative approach, we develop customized RMC mixes that guarantee optimal performance and cost-efficiency. Quality is our foremost priority. Our RMC plants are certified by Quality Council of India (QCI). Our quality control measures include regular material testing, on-site inspections, and adherence to industry benchmarks. These stringent processes ensure that our RMC products are of the highest quality, meeting the strictest standards and regulations.Our RMC Central Quality Laboratory at Vikhroli, Mumbai recently received a ‘Certificate of Accreditation from National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) by ISO /IEC 17025:2017. NABL accreditation reinforces our commitment to achieving quality excellence for our products and services.
In addition to the quality of RMC, customer centricity is at core in Godrej Construction. We have been regularly conducting third party Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSS) through Nielsen, across all our three lines of businesses, for more than a decade. Feedback received by the customers have provided us insights to take relevant improvement initiatives to enhance our quality of services. This has resulted in achieving best-in-class Net Promoter Scores (NPS), for all our three lines of businesses. Our NPS scores for Construction Materials business is 78, for Real Estate – Leasing business is 89 and for Real Estate – Development business is 82. Compliance to GST is expected to increase transparency, organized and quality focused approach in the overall business operations of RMC industry leading to further consolidation within the industry.
Godrej Construction is fully compliant to the stringent environmental compliances for air pollution, noise pollution related to the RMC operations.
What are the other challenges faced by RMC manufacturers while commissioning infrastructure projects in India?
The Construction industry, especially the building materials field is largely plagued with issues such as improper understanding of customer requirements, subpar tracking of product delivery and multiple follow ups. These inconveniences lead to a preventable loss of man hours, rejection of concrete and customer dissatisfaction. There is a vast margin for improvement, both, in the process as well as in overall customer satisfaction. Our Construction Materials team has undertaken various pioneering initiatives over the last few years to address multiple challenges faced by our customers within the Real Estate and Construction industry. To share a few, in order to provide a seamless customer experience, we have leveraged digital technology by developing a unique mobile application, the first of its kind in the industry, known as the ‘Godrej Go TUFF’ app. ‘Godrej Go TUFF’ app is enabled with convenient features like real-time delivery tracking ensuring transparency to optimise and manage every step of construction material supply from order to delivery. Concrete Testing ‘Squad’ Van by Godrej Construction offers quality testing services at the worksite. It enables faster turnaround of the approval process of ready-mix concrete mix design by our customers, as the results of mix design trials, cube testing, compressive strength, and sieve testing can be measured in a few hours. The construction sector is among the largest consumers of natural raw materials. As per various industry news and reports, concrete is the second most widely used substance on the planet, after waterand is used in almost everything we build, from homes to cities, to infrastructure. For an industry, that is vulnerable to raw material supply problems and price volatility, it does make sense to focus on resource efficiency, and the reuse of materials.
Your take on the government policies and regulations and the tweaks require to propel the RMC sector
The RMC industry in India is focused on improving the quality of construction for current and future generations. Increasing investments in infrastructure and real estate projects throughout the country coupled with increasing penetration of RMC is expected to drive the demand going forward. As per industry reports, in developed countries, the penetration of RMC is approximately 65 to 70 percent as against the estimated penetration of 7 percent in India. To promote higher adoption of RMC in construction sector, there needs to be more emphasis put by the government by introducing mandatory guidelines for use of RMC across all types of projects, for example, – In China, the government has mandated use of RMC for all buildings above seven floors. To ensure sustainable construction, strict quality control check must be done to allow only certified RMC manufacturers to supply the concrete materials and RMC Plants certified by Quality Council of India (QCI) / Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) shall be preferred.
What are your expansion strategies for the fiscal year 2024-25? Are there plans to launch new products or is a Greenfield or Brownfield facility in the offing?
The prevailing momentum in real estate sector has resulted into increase in new project launches, leading to growing demand for RMC and other building materials. Also, the increasing spends by the government on major infrastructure projects, expected to propel the demand for RMC in the near to medium term. We plan to leverage the positive sentiments of the market, to ensure the delivery of range of sustainable construction materials. We hope that the adoption of RMC by the public sector will encourage the private sector to standardize the use of sustainable concrete materials in their commercial and residential projects.
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