Infrastructure Projects - Operating Philosophy

Infrastructure projects are at the heart of development of a society. Google Grand Trunk Road for a while and you will understand why infrastructure projects matter so much to a society.

Earlier, infra projects were built to serve society, increase business and add to prosperity of common man. Now, infra in itself is a big business. This brings in great responsibility on the shoulders of those who are developing infra for the society.

Every field has its own basic laws, rules and practices.  For example, marketing has its 4P's. over time these practices and rules evolve and help practitioners as a guidance.

Almost all operations including businesses are based on certain values and these values decide fate of that operation/business. many a times these values don't elicit the requisite behaviour. the link between values and eliciting requisite behaviour can be bridged by having an "Operating Philosophy". This operating philosophy (OP) once understood by the operating group helps in keeping the focus on task and minimizes troubles. The operating philosophy must be in sync with values and purpose of the operations/businesses. LLWE is one of the ways to create operating philosophy for infrastructure projects. This OP helps in reducing complexity, cost and delays in infra projects.

Land, Labour, Water & Energy - (LLWE):

The four resources LLWE, are the key issues in infra sector in India and decide the fate of most of the projects. To start with, all projects are profitable on drawing board stage or excel/ppt  stage nowadays but not all projects end up as envisaged. In my experience, projects lack basic operating philosophy. LLWE is what I have learnt. 

Land - Most of the conflicts arise from land. The OP needs a change. Land is the biggest liability unless you are in land business. OP should be to minimize land use rather than hoarding land/owning land, wasting land. The moment we focus on minimizing land use, we start focus on technological solutions, and all other  variable which can achieve same design result and reduce land conflicts. The origin of conflicts in land acquisition occurs because of fundamental disconnect between the society (locals) and business. everyone wants infrastructure but not at the cost of their own survival. Thus reducing land area, mathematically, reduces number  of conflicts. If we separate ownership of land and infrastructure business then another large number of conflicts can be reduced. Magarpatta City, Pune is one of the shining example of such an endeavour. Vertical farming is another example where land use is minimized with latest technology. In case of wind energy projects, most of the struggle is in producing land for roads/pathways. This can be handled by use of high end logistics equipments.

Labour: Generally speaking, infrastructure projects construction speed is directly proportional to resources deployed. More the  manpower, better it is. But this also brings more complexity in day to day decision making. OP must aim to reduce manpower requirement. This is possible by using better machines, chemicals, methodologies and tools etc. The challenges of sourcing manpower, bringing them to work, training, discipline and obtaining output becomes simplers once better machines are deployed. This also reduces rework. This is how project velocity can be increased. One way is to use ready made materials and workoffsite rather than doing everything on site. use of cut 7 bend bars in construction is one of the simplest expamples. Is there a way to move steel binding in concreting process away from onsite. These ar ethe questions which one needs to ask and challenge status quo.

Water:

Water is one of the key ingredient in many projects. Wherever, we have concreting or civil construction, water is one of the raw material. there are chemicals and methods which can reduce requirement of water. Generally, water is not considered in detailed planning but it proves to be one of the limiting factors in construction. Water also instigates conflicts and reduction/elimination reduces conflicts. 

Energy:

Energy in context of project should be seen as electrical energy, movements, transportation etc. Reduction in energy uses leads to reduction in cost and time. We need to think about what can be done offsite. We also need to look at locally available material. One of the prime example is "sand". Use of sand in construction is necessary but use of river sand is full of challenges and not a good thing from social point of view. 

Once we have OP in place than we need to communicate with team. The moment team is involved ideas will start flowing. We need to question traditional wisdom and eternal assumptions. This way we can build better infrastructure projects and improve business of of infrastructure as well.

I invite all of you to debate, discuss and have a dialogue with your teams. Please share your experiences.