From Empty Plot to Working Plant: How We Built Mapei's Kosi Facility on a Turnkey Contract

Most of our clients ask the same question before they sign: can one contractor really handle piling, civil work, the steel shed, fire fighting and the finishes without the programme falling apart? The Mapei project at Kosi is the clearest answer we can give.

Mapei Construction Products India makes adhesives, sealants and chemical products for the building industry. In August 2021 the company awarded Parag Technobuild the job of building its manufacturing facility at A-7, Kosi Industrial Area, in Mathura district, Uttar Pradesh. This article walks through what was in the contract, how the work was sequenced, and what we learned.

What the contract covered

It was a lump-sum turnkey contract worth ₹23.60 crore, excluding GST. Mapei's own work-experience certificate splits it into ₹18.50 crore for civil and MEP works and ₹5.10 crore for the pre-engineered building. In practice, everything between bare land and a working plant was ours:

• Piling for the main building and the boundary wall
• Civil and structural works — foundations, RCC, machine foundations, guard room and boundary wall
• Pre-engineered building (PEB) for the main plant and warehouse
• MEP — fire fighting with fire tank and hydrant, electrical panels, HVAC, plumbing, STP and CCTV
• Finishing and interiors for the admin areas, and industrial floors in the plant

The facility was completed in April 2022.

Piling came first

The design called for pile foundations. In November 2021 our piling team installed 384 piles in about two months using three rigs — 176 piles, 11 m long, under the main building and 208 along the boundary wall, in 300 mm and 400 mm diameters.

Before production piling, two test piles were loaded to confirm the design: an ultimate vertical static load test, a lateral load test and a pull-out test. The piling package cost about ₹80 lakh including steel and concrete. Getting the piles done early mattered — every other trade on site was waiting on the pile caps.

Running civil, steel and MEP in parallel

A turnkey contract only saves time if the trades overlap instead of queuing. That is how we run jobs like this one: the PEB steel is designed and fabricated off-site while foundations go in, and anchor bolts are set from the steel supplier's final base-plate drawings so erection can start as soon as the concrete has gained strength.

With one team owning civil and MEP, sleeves for fire-fighting and plumbing lines, cable trenches and the fire-tank structure go into the civil work rather than being cut in later. That removes a large share of the rework we see on projects split between several agencies.

When the same project manager owns the slab, the steel and the fire line, nobody waits for someone else's drawing.

— PTPL Engineering Team

The MEP scope

Construction chemicals plants need serious fire protection. Our MEP package at Kosi covered:

• A fire-fighting system with an underground fire tank, pump room and external hydrant network
• Electrical panels and power distribution across the plant and admin block
• HVAC for the offices and controlled areas
• Plumbing, drainage and a sewage treatment plant (STP)
• CCTV across the premises

Because the same contractor built the civil structure, the pump room, fire tank and STP could be built to the MEP layout from the start.

Handover — and the repeat order

Mapei's certificate of 28 May 2022 records that the work was completed "within stipulated timeline keeping in view of best quality, safety and covid protocols". For a project that ran through the second half of 2021, that last part was not a formality.

The best measure of a job, though, is whether the client comes back. Mapei did. The building expansion of the same facility — civil, MEP and PEB, again on a lump-sum turnkey basis — was awarded to PTPL at ₹18.0 crore and delivered in eight months.

What other plant owners can take from it

1. Fix the soil question early. If piling is likely, test piles should be in the first weeks of the programme, not an afterthought.
2. Freeze the steel supplier's base-plate drawings before casting foundations. Anchor-bolt mismatches are the most common PEB delay.
3. Put fire fighting in the civil drawings. Fire tanks, pump rooms and hydrant routes are civil structures as much as MEP items.
4. Give one party the interfaces. Whether you choose a turnkey contractor or not, someone has to own the points where packages meet.