AB Infra to Expand & Consolidate Market Presence

With the major developmental activities going on across the country, AB Infra hopes to join the growth trajectory and witness a robust growth in its business year-on-year basis. Mr. Ashok Mandal, Director, AB Infra Solution, during an interaction with Maria R, says, “We intend to enhance our production capacity and introduce versatile systems for challenging structural designs projects besides consolidating our domestic market and also venturing into the Middle East market.”

What, according to you, are the demand trends and factors which guide the growth and development of scaffolding & formwork systems?

Some of the demand trends and factors which tend to guide the growth and development of Scaffolding & Formwork Systems are :-

Amount of construction and development work with time-frames for completion
Variety and Complexity of construction work
Safety & Environmental concerns at the workplace.

What are the emerging challenges for the formwork companies in India with the upcoming innovative arc- hitectural and complex structural designs projects?

With innovative architectural aspects and complex structural designs projects, both scope and challenges for formwork companies get enhanced. The formwork has to meet the requirement of architectural profiles and the complexity of the structures.

While the choice of raw materials such as steel, aluminium, plywood, etc, has to be carefully considered while designing the formwork, one has to ensure the ease of operation at site, besides ensuring easy and economical maintenance of the materials. All these will require constant upgradations and innovations.

Please tell about your products and their competitive features. What are the application areas where your formwork systems are in great demand?

We manufacture and market a complete range of Steel Scaffolding / Staging Systems such as Cuplok, H-Frames and Formwork Systems such as Wallform/Metriform/Tableform, including purpose–made formwork. Our strength lies in our ability to design, manufacture, and service quality Formwork, Staging & Scaffolding Systems for diverse applications in infrastructure projects such as Industrial Structures, Roads & Bridges, Airports, and Large Residentia/Commercial Complexes. Scaffolding for Industrial Maintenance work is one of our specialities.

Due to our strict quality controls and very close planning & monitoring, we remain competitive in a difficult but growing market like India.

Keeping lowest possible cost and providing versatility and efficiency, is the key to success in formwork industry; how are you maintaining these, especially in this competitive and cost conscious market?

In this competitive market, to be able to survive and grow, following points are our keywords:

Offer technically acceptable solutions while using minimum materials.
Proper advance planning in procurement of raw materials and production.
Ensuring quality products with near- zero rejections at plant-level.
Prompt despatches to ensure faster rotation of funds.
Doing business with assured and time-bound payments.
Avoiding rejections of materials after despatches, due to quality issues.

Safety and sustainability are of utmost importance in Scaffolding and Formwork systems; how do you look at these issues while developing new products?

Safety and life of the products are of paramount importance to us. We thrive to choose the appropriate raw materials and components, take adequate precautions at the time of production including painting / finishing, and provide necessary inputs to our customers for safe use and maintenance of the systems, through presentation/ demonstration.

For development of any new product, we always look at the following minimum aspects: Applicability, Durability, Repetitions, and Life Expectancy.

What is AB Infra’s core strength?

Our core strength lies in our teamwork, our resolve to be known as a quality and dependable supplier, and our penchant for learning.

How do you see the future outlook of AB Infra and what target have you set for the next five years?

We are extremely positive about the future of our organisation. We keep on consolidating our position in the Indian market and are also venturing out to the Middle East.

While we intend to add to our production capacities and introduce versatile systems, we hope to witness a robust growth in our business year-on-year basis. And with our country poised for major developmental activities, we hope to join the trajectory of growth.