Interarch : The First Mover in PEB

"Interarch today boasts of its First mover status. We have pioneered in introducing innovative and new concepts into our country matching infrastructural and quality requirements. We have been providing integrated designing, engineering, manufacturing and execution of metal building solutions to our valuable clients over the years. Interarch proved a pivotal cog in bringing up the largest pre-engineered building structural system for Delhi International Airport – IGI Terminal 3 and completed it in a record time. In the sector of PEB, we stand apart in providing end-to-end scalability to our clients to enhance their project execution capacities," says Mr. Arvind Nanda, CEO and Mr. Gautam Suri, Director & CTO, Interarch in an interview with MGS Architecture.
Tell us about your new manufacturing facility in Chennai and how this facility will strengthen your products and services?
The manufacturing facility at Sriperumbudur, Chennai has been active for the past 8 months. We decided to make our Chennai facility fully functional and able primarily to serve our South India based clients. The business in PEB sector in the south India, has paced up in the past few years and we saw a good demand in that region. The plant spread over an area of 3 acres, is well equipped. It has been effectively fulfilling the supply requirements for some of our key clients in this region. It has been providing secondary structural fabrication as well as manufacturing of roof and wall profiles for various client needs.


Could you also please elaborate on Interarch's various manufacturing facilities, their locations and in-house engineering capabilities from executing a simplest shed to complicated airport ceiling and roofing structure.
Interarch's first manufacturing facility was setup at Greater NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh, and is one of India's first pre-engineered building manufacturing facilities. It was set up in early 2000; Interarch Unit 1 is one of the most efficient manufacturing facilities producing more than 30,000 MT per annum of buildings and 20,000 MT per annum of roofing and cladding systems.


Unit 2 at Rudrapur is Interarch's flagship manufacturing facility set up in early 2005 caterings to the growing demand of pre-engineered steel buildings in the Indian market. This large facility has a capacity of over 50,000 MT and is one of the most modern manufacturing facilities in India. Spread across 12 acres, it is the only plant of its kind in India to have heavy-steel structure manufacturing capabilities which cater to large-scale industrial projects, multi-storey commercial complexes, car parks and hotels.

Interarch's current unit in Chennai (Unit 3) is servicing the south of India with secondary structural fabrication as well as manufacturing of roof and wall profiles. Chennai will start functioning to its capacity within the next 6 months to ensure most of the south India demand can be fed from it.

In 2008, Interarch set up Unit 4 at Kichha, Uttaranchal which is spread over 25 acres.

A word about Interarch Building Products Ltd, its milestone achievements since its inception in providing turnkey Pre-engineered steel construction solutions to the construction industry. What makes Interarch's way of working in the country different from the rest of its competitors in this business?
Interarch today boasts of its First mover status. We have pioneered in introducing innovative and new concepts into our country and have sufficed the infrastructural needs. We take pride in stating that we have been providing integrated design, engineering, manufacturing and execution of metal building solutions to our valuable clients over the years.

Interarch proved a pivotal cog in bringing up the largest pre-engineered building structural system for Delhi International Airport – IGI Terminal 3 and completed it in a record time of 37 months. We have also been instrumental in the development of the largest greenfield Automobile plant for Tata Motors at Pantnagar, execution of the largest steel framed corporate office building for Reliance in Navi Mumbai, execution of over 900 canopies for Reliance Petroleum all over India, not forgetting the Indira Gandhi Airport back in 1982, Roofing systems for Hyundai motors in 1991 amongst many others.

We agree that there is a healthy competition around in the sector of PEB but we stand apart in providing end-to-end scalability to our clients by sufficing their design, architectural, engineering, logistics, supply and project execution capacities for their projects.


It is easy for many to deliver a building on time to a project site, what makes Interarch different is that Interarch delivers projects, not just buildings and parts at site.

Interarch focuses on the 3 elementary aspects of turnkey pre-engineered steel building solutions: Engineering, Manufacturing and Project Delivery and completion, under stringent quality, safety and timelines.

Your company has the distinction of being the first mover in the country from metal roofing to other systems including modern cladding systems. Can you please enumerate some of the important projects executed, including development of the largest Greenfield plant at Pantnagar and industrial segments served through your products and services?
Interarch has been the first mover in India, right from metal ceilings, to blinds, metal roofing to pre-engineered buildings. Interarch has a manufacturing capacity of more than 150,000 MT per annum of steel building structures and over 40,000 MT per annum for its Tracdek Roof & Wall systems. Interarch has four manufacturing facilities located at Greater Noida, Rudrapur and Kiccha in Uttarakhand, and Sriperembadur in Tamil Nadu. Interarch has a pan India network of regional offices in all major cities with its central marketing operations handled from New Delhi.

The key achievements for Interarch include the development of the largest green field Automobile plant for Tata Motors at Pantnagar, execution of the largest steel framed office building for Reliance. The company's clients list includes Tata Motors, Reliance Industries, General Motors, Bajaj, Hyundai, Fiat and Honda. Interarch has been proving its pre-engineered construction mettle in sectors like Automotive, Industrial, Logistics and Warehousing, on-road retailing, Port infrastructure, Power Plants, Airports and terminals as well as advanced steel construction solutions for major infrastructure projects.

Some of the major construction solutions offered by Interarch are their advanced Pre-engineered Steel Buildings and structural systems, Interarch Light – Light Building & Framing Systems, and Tracdek Roof & Wall Systems that are used in industrial, commercial and residential building construction. Interarch also offers false ceiling systems for commercial spaces under the Trac brand. All Interarch products speak of their fine quality & are designed to withstand harsh climatic conditions. Interarch is certified as an ISO 9001:2000 company since 1999 by UL Inc. USA.

Over the year, your company has been able to develop expertise to serve the airport sector undertaking jobs for various clients in this space. Few words about this aspect.
Aviation sector requires a larger than life infrastructure, both in terms of buildings as well as land space. As the country is developing and doing really good at that, the airports continuously need to expand or revamp the look and designs basis every cities growing needs. The Cargo buildings also demand an adequate PEB structures. Interarch has been serving the sector since 1982.

Interarch has been the recipient of Best Pre-engineered building project award for its work in the IGI Airport. What have been the technical attributes of the work relating to design and construction features on which this award was bestowed on the company?
The IGI-Terminal 3 project is known as one of the largest and most fast paced projects undertaken by any developer on Indian soil.


Through its course Interarch designed, manufactured and constructed over 7500MT of steel in 8 months.

The terminal 3 project required multiple handling of pre-engineered construction activities spread over an area of almost 5 square km's and over almost 20 active work fronts on different parts of the building each with their own dedicated resources for power, construction equipment and manpower teams, all deployed by Interarch PMC. The Interarch project management team deployed more than 200 engineers at the site, including heavy construction equipment, and over 2000 skilled workmen to execute the project work successfully with safety and quality.

All site coordination was handled from its central control at the DIAL T-3 site office and wireless communication over local radio's assisted construction and coordination of the entire project from material handling and feed to front, to lifting, assembly and final crane lifts to the building location and rooftop.

Interarch shifted the entire team of senior in-house design, manufacture, project management and construction experts to the DIAL site for a period of over 10 months to handle the structural steel execution as well as the roofing of the gigantic terminal building. By coordinating its outputs for an ever-changing airport site, which required constant pre-planning, planning and then further re-planning to cater to the dynamic site conditions along with constant design and redesign requirements from the customer for interface details and adaptability and compatibility to various construction aspects, Interarch was able to give lightening fast response times and streamline its system dynamically to cater to the project from its design support set up's directly at site.

The IGI-Terminal 3 building is the second largest integrated terminal building of its kind in Asia and its roof covers an area of over 45 acres.

Once Interarch completed the structural steel design, in-house manufacturing and execution for the steel package of the project, it commenced operations on roofing.

Interarch operations were deployed after completion of its pre-engineered steel structural systems to roof the gigantic building in a world-class insulated 7 layer roofing system completed in Alluminium.

The entire roof system comprised 7 independent insulating layers, laid layer by layer, by hand, over a coverage area of over 45 acres. That led to almost 7 x 45 = 315 acres of roofing laid in less than 12 months. In engineered terms, almost 1.3 million square meters of roofing came together using some of the most tough to handle roofing material in the world.

Interarch project management deployed over 30 roofing teams totaling over 1500 people at their peak, to roof the entire building.

Top 12 projects in the last 1-2 years
Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd	2010	Trichy	Tamil Nadu	Power
Delhi Cargo Service Centre	2010	New Delhi	New Delhi	Warehouse & Logistics
SMCC Ltd	2010	Bhiwadi	Rajasthan	Infrastructure
Insecticides India Ltd	2010	Dahej	Gujarat	Petroleum & Chemical
SMCC Construction India Ltd	2010	Bhiwadi	Rajasthan	Infrastructure
ITC Limited	2010	Bhadrachalam	Andhra Pradesh	FMCG
REI Agro Limited	2010	Bawal	Haryana	FMCG
Natrip Global Automotive Research Centre	2009	Chennai	Tamil Nadu	Automotive ancillary
Tata Motors Pvt Ltd (Penguin)	2009	Pant Nagar	Uttaranchal	Automotive
Amco India Construction Pvt Ltd	2009	Dharuhera	Haryana	Automotive ancillary
GK Industrial Park Pvt Ltd	2009	Trichy	Tamil Nadu	Infrastructure
Goldan Vats Pvt Ltd	2009	Chennai	Tamil Nadu	Manufacturing

With respect to the roofing aspect of the project, unlike the rest of the pre-engineered building business in the country, Interarch reached a new level of command on its position in the industry.

The entire components of the Terminal 3 "pre-engineered 7-Layer roofing system" was although designed completely in-house by Interarch the requirements of the customer and their architects, however, none of the bulk material in the roofing system were produced by Interarch.

What has been the business performance of your company during the last two years? Based on your strong fundamental—how do you look at the future of your company in the next 3-4 years as country's largest turnkey supplier of PEB construction solutions? What are new projects in hand?
Pre 2008, Interarch closed with a turnover of over 600 crores, however, Interarch's turnover was 350 crore in the FY 2010-11. We are confident of raising the scale for the next FY. As we speak, work is on for a good number of projects in large growth sectors like Auto and their ancillaries, Paint, Power, textile and agriculture industries to name few, as well as warehousing facilities in various parts of the country. Interarch is also putting best efforts to secure larger projects closer to the kinds as those in the infrastructure segment.