Jamshyd N. Godrej, Chairman and Managing Director, Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. (G&B), agreed to provide the additional space in a section of Plant 3. But that, too, wasn’t enough, so more space was granted in Plant 6. Eventually, arrangements for the Exhibition were made in Plants 11, 12, 3 and 6.

Role of Construction Department
Preparations by G&B’s Construction Department for the Exhibition began as early as February 2003, when plans for major civil and structural modifications were initiated. Plant 12, which had been vacated by the Storwel Manufacturing Unit of the erstwhile Storwel Division (now a part of the Furniture and Interior Group), had to be refurbished to meet the specific requirements of the Exhibition venue. An overlay of concrete was also provided to level out the uneven flooring.

Plant 11 was earmarked for common services such as catering requirements, registration facilities and other infrastructure support services. Plant 11 was earlier used as the Godrej Service Centre for various Divisions, as well as for storing records of Corporate Departments. These records, to be preserved for statutory and other internal reasons, were stored in approximately 1,800 cupboards stacked and fabricated as a 4-tiered structure. Dismantling this structure and relocating these cupboards to Plant 1 in a manner which would facilitate easy retrieval, was itself a herculean task. It was only after this was accomplished that the refurbishment work could be carried out.

Once it was decided to provide an additional 1,00,000 square feet space in Plant 3, the area proposed to be used for the Exhibition was cordoned off by constructing an 18-foot-high masonry wall, separating it from the rest of the factory building. This area was made available after the Refrigerator manufacturing unit merged with the existing manufacturing units in Plants 2 and 5 at Pirojshanagar as well as at its Plant at Shirwal. Construction of an additional fire escape staircase and other repairs, as also toilet renovation, were undertaken here.

Plant 6 had already been vacated by the Prima Division by this time. But the toilet blocks needed to be suitably modified and renovated to meet the requirement of the Exhibition venue. Also, certain structural changes needed to be made at the new entrances to facilitate access of trucks to the Exhibition Hall area.

The internal and external walls of all these Plants, along with their adjoining structures, needed to be repaired and painted. This, too, was a massive exercise, but was essential to give the necessary facelift to the Godrej estate. All the engineers and agencies concerned rose to the occasion, and did a wonderful job in ensuring that the work was completed on schedule.

Jamshyd Godrej gives Deepak Parekh a guided tour of the various Exhibition Halls.

Support Services
G&B also provided an array of support services such as electrical, catering, compressed air supply, water supply, civil structural design validation, horticulture, security and traffic control, telecom, medical assistance and housekeeping services for this event. R.P. Gidh, Director, IMTMA, and the IMTMA team coordinated all the arrangements, including the setting up of stalls, coordination with exhibitors, material handling agencies, transport arrangement, signage, registration formalities, organising special functions for exhibitors, making lounge arrangements as well as the activities of other agencies, including those of the Godrej Support Service teams involved in the event. IMTMA set up a camp office in Plant 12 to coordinate these arrangements a month before the start of the event.

In recent years, G&B has been reviewing its manufacturing operations in an effort to revamp and optimise the utilisation of space. This is being done by each of the Divisions under the guidance of Consultant Takaosan Kasahara. This has resulted in the freeing up of valuable built-up space, and, in turn, is being leveraged to yield returns by way of letting out such premises to external clients for use as office premises, exhibition venues and so on. The hosting of IMTEX and Tooltech 2004 at Pirojshanagar has been the result of such efforts.

Getting the Godrej industrial garden township ready for hosting the IMTEX involved the efforts of approximately 600 to 900 workmen, about 60 contractors/agencies, several engineers and other specialists daily for over 10 months. The work often extended beyond regular working hours. A considerable amount of repairs, structural alterations and refurbishments were required to modify the manufacturing Plants and bring them in line with the requirements of an international exhibition venue. It is remarkable that the work was completed without any accidents, in spite of the high risks involved.

Some other facilities provided by Godrej for the Exhibition were a conference room, seminar halls, a venue for inaugural and other functions, etc. Arrangements were made to facilitate the parking of 2,500 cars spread over two locations along the Eastern Express Highway and L.B.S. Marg, the latter being reserved for exhibitors. As many as 25 buses, including BEST bus services, were deployed to ferry thousands of people from Vikhroli and Ghatkopar railway stations as well as from the car parks.

The IMTMA team, along with architect Sachin Handa and the G&B teams, met on several occasions to review the stall layout plans. The plans for the layout of stalls within the Exhibition Halls were reviewed by Jamshyd Godrej and A. Mukherjee, Executive Director, IMTMA, before finalising them. Jamshyd also reviewed the progress of work regularly. Gidh, Mukherjee, V. Anbu, Senior Director, IMTMA, Maneck Engineer, Vice President, Construction Department, and H.N. Daruwalla, Vice President and Business Head, Electrical & Electronic (E&E) Services, were also actively involved in providing valuable inputs in the course of setting up the infrastructure arrangements for IMTEX.

Much needed to be done to improve the general infrastructure and upkeep in all areas accessible to visitors during the Exhibition. Jamshyd Godrej personally looked into all aspects of the preparation for each of the Exhibition Halls as well as the common areas. Several issues related to external repair and painting of adjoining Plants, road and pavement repair, car parking requirements, lighting and power supply requirements, landscaping, security and traffic control arrangements, catering service requirements, transportation arrangements, signage within the premises as well as outside the township, storage of packaging materials, arrangements for the inauguration, valedictory and other functions as well as general housekeeping arrangements, were some of the concerns redressed by him.

Clockwise: V.S. Goindi, Deepak Parekh, Vinod Doshi and Jamshyd Godrej have an informal discussion.

Say It With Flowers
IMTEX 2004 was memorable for the Garden Department (part of the Construction Department) in many ways.

It was decided that the Garden Department would be in charge of beautifying the campus, providing horticultural assistance to the IMTMA for the organisation of the Exhibition and providing pot plants, landscapes, flower arrangements, etc. to all the exhibitors.

It was estimated that approximately 6,000 potted plants would be required for the Exhibition. An inventory of the pot plants in stock showed only about 1,500 plants of the required quality. By June 2003, preparations for pot plants had started. Six categories were made for pots ranging from 5 inches in diameter to 18 inches in diameter. The plants were initially planted in soil and were placed in the pots in December. By the start of the Exhibition, approximately 8,500 pots had been prepared, of which about 6,000 pots were utilised.

Making the pot plants available was easy compared to campus beautification. The industrial campus was shedding its skin due to the property development business and the property rented to external businesses. Civil works were going on in full scale and most of the gardens on the western side were in bad shape till December 2003. A phase of coordination then started between the Civil Maintenance Department and the Garden Department. Engineers and horticulturists worked together to beautify every corner of the area. Both Departments worked overtime for 45 days continuously.

Those 45 days were full of enthusiasm, tension, achievements, joy and, at times, anger. There were times when the team almost cracked under pressure. As the clock ticked away and the Exhibition dates approached, the Departments were not quite sure of their work in some areas. For example, in Plant 3, where major civil work was under way, we were running around in circles. The amount of work to be done in the Plant was tremendous; time was running out and any landscaping to be done had to be temporary, as major civil work was to start in the area soon after the close of the Exhibition.

Jamshyd Godrej’s campus visit on 11 January, looking into every tiny detail of the preparations, was a turning point. Some of the areas were in a mess. The very next day, Madhu Mistry, Assistant Manager, Construction Department, sent the Construction Department and E&E Services a 120-point agenda. All 120 points were addressed by the time of Jamshyd’s next visit on 26 January. The Garden Department was pleased to see a smile on his face, showing his confidence in the staff.

On 27 January, the Garden Department heaved a sigh of relief as the entire campus looked beautiful, especially Plant 12, which had a spectacular view. Many visitors took pictures and videos of the landscapes there. The main person responsible for this was Smita Godrej Crishna, who spent a lot of time with the Garden Department staff, giving them fresh ideas. It was a wonderful learning experience, and the Garden Department is thankful to her for driving the staff to do their best.

Though the landscapes were all in place, there was no time off for the staff, as pot plants, flowers, bouquets and landscapes had to be delivered to many exhibitors and, at the same time, the floral arrangements for the inaugural function had to be completed. There were several constraints. Most exhibitors waited till the last moment to give the Garden Department 300 orders! The Exhibition Halls were far apart and the nursery had no provision for lights to see and select the pots. Entry restriction was another issue. Surmounting all these problems, 70 per cent of the delivery was done on time and the spillovers were cleared on the first day of the Exhibition.

An aerial view of the multitude of prospective businessmen and customers who visited the exhibits.
 

Role of E&E Services
Electrical and Electronic Services also took an active part in organising IMTEX 2004.

As it was the first time that four halls were being utilised for the Exhibition, E&E Services faced several challenges in planning and execution. The connected (power) load projected for Plants 11 and 12 was 5,000 kilowatts. Later, when Plants 3 and 6 were roped in, the connected load shot up to 7,700 KW,merely for the participants’ machinery. Taking into consideration other facilities such as the food court, Exhibition services and so on, the connected load rose to over 8,500 KW. The connected load was 4,500 KW in Plant 12 and 2,700 KW in Plant 3.

The biggest challenge for E&E Services was to feed such a high connected load in Plant 12, which has only two transformers of 1,000 KVA (kilovolt amps), one of them feeding compressors, which supply compressed air to all the Plants on the west side of the railway lines. Even feeding 2,700 KW connected load in Plant 3 was impossible as it has only two transformers of 800 KVA.

Finally, after a lot of brainstorming, it was decided that Plant 12 be fed power from five sources. Three cables were laid from Plant 19, which has two transformers of 1,000 KVA, partially loaded; E&E Services took over 1,000 KW on these cables. Tata’s World Network Service (WNS) power was extended from Plant 10 to Plant 12 to take the additional 1,000 KVA.

It was also decided to feed compressed air to all the G&B Plants on the west side of the railway lines from the Godrej Appliance Division’s compressors, which are located on the Diesel Generator (DG) site, south of Plant 5. This took off most of the load from the 1,000 KVA transformer, feeding compressors in Plant 12 substation. These two transformers were pressed into service to feed over 2,000 KW load. Some power was also drawn from Plant 11. In this way the Department fed a total 4,500 KW of power to Plant 12 from five different sources.

Tatas were also asked to reinforce their substation east of Plant 3 to feed 2,700 KW of IMTEX load. There was one more problem. The Tata feeder supplying the G&B network could take a total load of only 10,000 KVA. G&B itself draws 7,500 to 8,000 KVA every day. An additional draw of 4,000 to 5,000 KVA for IMTEX 2004, for a connected load of 8,500 KVA, simply could not be handled by the Tata network, which cannot feed beyond 10,000 KVA. To overcome this problem, E&E Services ran the Company’s DG sets daily during the period of the Exhibition and took more than 4,000 KVA of G&B load onto them, so that the Tata network could easily feed IMTEX plus the balance G&B load.

Metering was another challenge. The Department had to ensure that IMTEX was charged accurately, and that none of G&B or the Appliance Division’s loads were metered on the IMTEX account. For this, Tatas installed 7 KWH (kilowatt hour) meters, so that IMTEX could be charged only for what it consumed.

Apart from high bay lights inside the Plants, over 200 additional halogen lights were installed in the factory compound and at all entry/exit points. Seven public address systems were installed with two car-hailing systems to facilitate smooth traffic movement.

Three air compressors of G&B of 838 Cfm (cubic feet per minute) capacity were released from the network to cater to the IMTEX load. In total, 4.5-km-long air and water lines were laid in Plants 12, 3 and 6 to feed 250 air connections and 41 water connections to participants.

For communication purposes, three business centres were located in Plants 11, 3 and 6, along with 14 wireless PCO booths installed at the entrance and at strategic locations in Plants 11, 12, 3 and 6, for participants and visitors to use.

Most importantly, a Wireless Internet Service (WI-FI) was provided for the first time, whereby participants could access the Internet on their notebook computers without any wire connections in Plants 11, 12, 3 and 6. More than 70 participants used this facility, which was provided for the first time in IMTEX history.

In addition, the Department asked Orange to increase their call-handling capacity at Plants 11, 12, 3 and 6 to handle increased mobile communication. Ten micro cell sites were provided in Halls 11, 12, 3 and 6 to increase the network handling capacity of the existing cell sites.

Power consumption reached a record high during IMTEX 2004. In total, over 2,70,000 KWH of power was consumed by IMTEX 2004 at a maximum draw of 4,000 KVA, which is a record (higher even than IMTEX 1998) with a connected load of 13,000 KW.

Ashwin Mistry, Assistant General Manager, Godrej Infotech Ltd., explains the product to Jamshyd Godrej.
 

Participation by Godrej Infotech Ltd. (GIL)
GIL was also one of the participants in Tooltech 2004 in Hall 6, showcasing “Integrated Software Solutions for Every Enterprise”. GIL took this opportunity to launch eNccompass, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) developed by the Company. Live demos of ERP products like BaaN, Navision and eNccompass were arranged. Also, add-on products eSell, eBuy, eCRM, etc. were developed by GIL.

A large percentage of top management visitors visited the stall. GIL consultants made over 250 demonstrations. Taking advantage of the Exhibition location, GIL also arranged for detailed discussions and demonstrations in its office premises at Plant 10 nearby. Having made contact with so many prospective customers, GIL is hopeful of doing good business in the coming year.

Godrej Infotech Ltd. also provided Internet connections, PCs and printers to the IMTEX organising committee as well as to the participating companies, apart from providing printing services in the business centre at all the Exhibition Halls. It was a unique experience scaling up the infrastructure for a limited period of time without interrupting the services of GIL’s other customers.

The Godrej Infotech Ltd. team with Pradeep Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer, GIL (centre), at the IMTEX stall.

A Successful Event
The event was a success in more ways than one. The response of the visitors to the Exhibition was quite overwhelming and even took IMTMA by surprise. At times, the organisers ran out of registration forms as the number of visitors far exceeded their estimates! As anticipated, there was a larger crowd over the weekend. The overall feedback from most of the exhibitors and visitors was positive. Several Indian and international organisers of exhibitions have approached Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. to consider the possibility of converting part of the G&B township into an international-standard permanent exhibition venue, which would significantly benefit Mumbai, the commercial capital of India. The Exhibition also provided a good opportunity to showcase the vast and well-maintained Godrej estate to visitors from various industries, indirectly reinforcing the Godrej brand.

IMTEX brought back nostalgic memories to all those who had seen some of the earlier shows held at the Godrej campus. Some of the older entrepreneurs remembered how they had started in a small way at the time when the Indian machine tool industry was still in its nascent stage. Over the years, their business had grown considerably. Most of the eminent persons associated with the manufacturing industry as also the Chief Guest at the inaugural function, Deepak Parekh, Chairman, Housing Development Finance Corporation, were optimistic about the industry’s future trends, especially its potential for growth in the export sector. IMTMA has estimated that India is set to achieve an 85 per cent increase in manufacturing business value by the year 2007. Pirojshanagar can perhaps be considered a happy hunting ground for all who have participated in IMTEX and Tooltech Exhibitions over the years. Memories of this Exhibition, too, will be cherished for several years to come.

Bidding Adieu
This is probably the last IMTEX that Godrej has hosted. It is, henceforth, expected to be permanently relocated to Bangalore. The Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association has already acquired approximately 50 acres of land in Bangalore where it is currently constructing a permanent exhibition venue. These premises will thereafter be used for holding future IMTEX and Tooltech Exhibitions and will also be available for letting out as a venue for other exhibitions. The venue is expected to be ready before the next IMTEX and Tooltech in 2007. However, as Jamshyd Godrej pointed out, one could never say with certainty that this indeed was the last that Godrej has seen of IMTEX. He had said this earlier in 1989 too, when it was decided that all future IMTEX and Tooltech Exhibitions would be held at the Pragati Maidan in Delhi, only to have it hosted once again this year by Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. at Pirojshanagar.

At the end of it all, one cannot but reflect on how far-sighted the late Naoroji Godrej was in pioneering the first IMTEX and seven successive exhibitions, and how delighted he would have been that the tradition still continues!

Anup Mathew, Construction Department/
Vivek Kulkarni, Garden Department/
H.N. Daruwalla, E&E Services/
Chinmay Patra, Marketing, GIL