 "KEF Infra looks at being Tesla of Construction in India")
Dubai-based entrepreneur Faizal E Kottikollon compares KEF Infra, an infrastructure firm he founded, to Elon Musk's electric car company Tesla.
At KEF Infra's fully integrated offsite manufacturing facility in Krishnagiri, around 60 km from Bengaluru in Tamil Nadu, around 400 engineers and architects design hospitals, homes and offices, use robots to build walls, floors and doors, and ship the precast material to customers’ locations and assemble them. KEF offers even the upholstery and panels that is required for buildings from its facility.
“There is a lot of predictability as the entire experience is controlled at the integrated facility,” he says. “It is industrial revolution 4.0, where technology is being used in redefining infrastructure.”
Unlike traditional construction firms, KEF, which Kottikollon started two years after he sold his valve firm Emirates Techno Casting for $400 million to Tyco Group, looks at offering an integrated design and assembly of buildings as model that would reduce time and cut costs for customers. It uses automation and robotics and leverages sensors to bring in efficiency; ensure that quality is maintained till the product is shipped and assembled at its client locations.
Large enterprises such as Infosys and builders such as Embassy Group that have signed KEF Infra can reduce building projects by as much as half and cut costs by 30 per cent, says Kottikollon.
The firm currently has eight projects from Infosys, Bosch, Embassy, Samara Capital and Vaishnavi Builders. It is also building the tallest clock tower for Infosys at its Mysuru campus and a 500-bed hospital in Kozhikode, Kerala.
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KEF Infra expects revenue to touch Rs 654 crore this year, doubling every year to reach $1.6 billion by 2022. To achieve this, the firm expects to build around 53.5 million sq feet of building for clients and plans three new offsite manufacturing facilities – one each in the national capital region, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
While looking to tap local contracts, KEF already has begun work at its Krishnagiri facility of building villas for a project in Dubai and a precrafted Philip Johnson Glass House, which it plans to export next year. “Exports will be a component. We already have orders,” says Kottikollon.