In his address at CII (SR) in Chennai, L&T’s CEO and Managing Director S N Subrahmanyan spoke on the digitalisation drive at L&T. He spoke with passion lined with humour. After the meeting, I expressed my appreciation and urged the reticent technocrat-business leader to find time for such presentations more often. Excerpts:
FROM POuRING CONCRETE TO DIGITAL LEADERSHIP
It happened about seven to eight years ago when succession planning was discussed at L&T. My boss (A M Naik) commented: “you know about pouring concrete, but not much about L&T. You better learn on these needs before you start to lead.”
I went to the US and stayed there for about a year looking at IT and technology business services. I didn’t know much about coding. I regularly met clients, got acquainted with them and their techniques. Whenever people across different industries like telecom, retail and logistics meet, they talked about digital and the Internet of Things. I learned how these technologies could bring about a change in the construction business. I was hopeful of transforming the company into a sustainable future.
DT TO GET THE BEST OUT OF MEN AND MACHINES
We endeavored to marry technology to improve work practices. 30 months ago we went about employing various gadgets like drones and using analytics, virtual reality, IOT, etc., We work across 1200 sites. Technology is so used that I sit at my office and monitor work.
L&T involves 250,000- 275,000 workmen on regular basis. We have their data; for instance, e can recruit a few hundred carpenters for a site in quick time. Any time, these are tracked and their work monitored. We have around 12,000 assets, 60 different types of equipment. These need upgradation of technology. We have completed this for around 9000 assets with around 97 per cent improvements. We have sensors fitted in all the equipment. These enable us to locate these, know their capacity utilisation, energy consumption and ensure their optimum utilisation. With sensors fitted in the equipment, we can measure output online.
Our engineers create the software for such monitoring and analysis in-house and also by start-up companies in India. By putting a sensor and a camera on helmets, we can monitor the productivity of workmen using tools like blue tooth. Thus digital technology helps us to get the best out of men and machines.
NEW WORK PRACTICES…
L&T uses augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), AI (Artificial intelligence), IOT, GIS, etc., to educate and inform workmen of the details and the safety aspects of the work. The work schedule is shared with workmen through an App that gives them the specifications. This ensures that the worker goes to the site with needed information and can just start working without elaborate briefing by the supervisor. The App is used by all the workers. This system effectively uses digital/mobile technologies.
Mapping through drones improved profitability
The job: letting water impounded by a dam and distributing it for irrigation to three adjoining districts in Madhya Pradesh.
It was lump-sum job with a fixed price. 70 per cent of any water job goes towards the cost of pipes and laying these. So the focus is on these costs.
We used drones and cameras fitted on helicopters and mapped extensively the region. By far this was the largest survey of a landscape done by L&T: every single tree, rock, ravine was tracked and mapped. All obstructions were taken into account. We arrived at the shortest routes to lay the pipes. Thanks to such modern technology in planning and surveying we saved around 8000 tons of pipes that made the business more profitable. This technology can be used for laying roads on optimum routing and high rise buildings.
The more we adopt and use such technologies we move forward much faster, more efficient and more transparent. Young Indian engineers guided by a few experienced hands do all these. This is the technology for a sustainable future.
