Precast equipment industry equips itself with opportunities

The growth of precast equipment manufacturing is directly proportional to the growth of precast projects. It’s a trend for huge housings and townships that will in turn trigger the growth of related construction such as malls, schools and hospitals. Volume of the projects is very high in contrast with earlier time when a developer was looking at building 5-6 storied projects. The price of land has sky-rocketed paving way to vertical growth.

Precast is the solution and need for future, with all the construction related problems our Indian construction companies facing today with labour constraint, shuttering problems, low quality, project delays, etc. Precast concrete is the only solution and most of the construction companies are looking forward to adapting to the precast technology considering the attributes and benefits along with it. 

Certainly, these factors are propelling Indian precast equipment manufacturing market. It has grown very rapidly in past few years; Precast Machinery is very useful now for every civil construction project to do the work quickly in less time and low cost.

Machineries in demand

India is in an infant stage in terms of production as well machinery availability, presently machinery are available for production of manholes, hum pipes, covers, trench covers and boundary walls among others. With the kind of demand for precast products certain precast equipments are prevailing in the industry that includes hollow core, extruders, tilting tables and flat molds.

Hollow core is used for most of applications requiring a floor or roof system including schools, office buildings, hotels, senior citizen's apartments, commercial buildings, residential dwellings, nursing homes and educational facilities. These slabs are oriented to either span between load bearing shear walls or to span from the central corridor to the exterior walls. Hollow core is economical. Modular precast concrete floor and roof slabs are machine manufactured under controlled conditions in modern precast plants.

Because of its flexibility and low-cost features, tilting tables are widely used. The production of precast concrete parts on stationary tilting tables allows the vertical removal of wall elements through hydraulically operated tilting plants that place the shuttering at a tilting angle of up to 80°. Tilting tables can be set up individually or else coupled with one another to allow the use of machines corresponding to production on production lanes. As with other stationary production procedures, tilting tables can also be equipped with heating coils and compaction plants. Tilting tables are used for production of precast wall panels for both Load bearing and Non-load bearing. Here, precast wall panels will avoid frame structure (Column & beam) in the building. In place of a column, wall panel offers a continuous column which is more stable and further avoid brick masonry and plaster to the complete super structure.

“Extruders are also in demand as they are used for a complete package of plant and machinery for production of pre-stressed hollow core slabs. In addition, flat moulds for production of precast solid slabs and staircase moulds equipments that can be used for single mould & twin mould are in much demand,” says Mr. Dinesh Raj, director, Technocore Precast Plant & Machinery Private Limited. Battery mould system is equipment used to manufacture wall panels. Battery mould is a vertical casting system with 12 or 16 leafs on panel casting moulds; this system is pre-fixed with self vibration and steam curing system and can achieve 2 or 3 castings per day. 

Technocore is currently, focusing on supply of machinery mainly to cater for structural building system such as extruders, tilting table systems for precast cladding, flat table system, and moulds for production of precast storm water drains and machineries and facility for casting of pre-stressed solid slabs.

Customization and offering solutions based on client’s requirement is a key in any businesses. Having a technical team addressing new demands is a must. Mr. Deepak Bansal, proprietor Prem Enterprises, says, "Today, our products and services are well treasured at national platform. We have a team of professionals, engineers and technicians who are ever eager to develop new lines of allied machinery to take on any challenge of modern age requirements." Prem Enterprises offer different machineries including precast molding machine for roof panel, precast molding machine for boundary wall panels and H Beam/Pillars molding machines

Competence on usage of equipments is needed

There is a mix of both importer of equipments and indigenously developed equipment providers in the country. For instance, Technocore offer in-housed developed machineries while, WeBau India imports technology and equipments from Europe.  "All our equipments are indigenously manufactured at our unit in UP. We have supplied our precast machinery to so many housing projects in Delhi, Chennai, Pondicherry and low cost housing projects comprising DSIIDC Baprora EWS project, DSIIDC Bawana EWS project and Eno Geo City project in Chennai," adds Mr. Bansal of Prem Enterprises.

Awareness on usage of the equipments is a major concern for the growth. Reiterating on this view, Mr. Raj of Technocore adds, "Initially every single technology sounds complicated, but upon understanding and its work-ability and maintenance it always easy to handle system."

Few factors such as resistance to change, unfamiliarity of architects and engineers, lack of exposure to the technology in technical institutes on the usage of precast products and lack of knowledge on the usage of precast equipment itself may hinder the growth of precast equipment market. "No doubt, the cost of equipments is on the higher side but the growth is further affected due to the lack of awareness on the usage of machineries," says Aditya Khanna of WeBau India. These factors triggering precast equipment manufacturers to grow awareness and acquaint users with required skill sets through conducting seminars and hold specialised programme called 'Precast Structural Design Services', he adds.

A slew of prospects for growth

"We are keen on supplying at least 5 facilities for production of pre-stressed hollow core slabs and wall panels, which is understood to be the most desired precast building elements at the moment," adds
Mr. Raj of Technocore. The future of Precast Industry will very progressive in coming years in India; There is big opportunity to build large Infrastructure well on time & with cost  effectiveness   as low cost housing projects , bridges, metro rail projects and many more only by using precast products that will be done quickly well on time with very low cost ."Currently, there are 15-16 automated precast equipment manufacturing factories in India. With the growing rate for precast products, the growth will double in the next two years," says Aditya Khanna of WeBau India.

Precast equipment manufacturers can wake up to a plethora of opportunities including huge requirement of affordable houses, shortage of skilled labor, large size projects, exposure to global market and demand for quality construction.

EOM

Box item: Top three precast equipments

Extruders

Complete package of plant & machinery for production of pre-stressed hollow core slabs. It can offer high productivity at low production cost with relation to concrete, steel, manpower consumption, etc. The pre-stressing system in hollow core slab is to result in savings in steel consumption while voids in the slab to further save in concrete and low labor required for production process resulting in significant financial benefits when compared to traditional method or any other method of reinforced concrete slab.

Tilting Tables

Tilting tables are designed for the fabrication of large area reinforced concrete products. Integrated high frequency vibrators facilitate optimal compaction of the freshly poured concrete. The surface of the steel plate is ultra flat and guarantees a high-quality concrete surface. On request, the tilting tables can be equipped with various types of heating systems. The combination of various tilting tables can be used as one entire shuttering surface.

Battery moulds

Battery moulds are designed for the vertical fabrication of single layer; large area reinforced precast products of varying dimensions and thicknesses. They consist of bulkheads between which several concrete products can be simultaneously formed. The major advantage of vertical production consists in the high number of precast concrete elements that are produced on a very limited area. This allows an extremely high productivity.

Source: Technocore Precast Plant & Machinery Private Limited and WeBau India