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L&T Defence to Produce Quad Launcher for BRAHMOS Missiles
Mr. Jayant Patil, Whole-time Director (Defence) and Member of L&T Board, handing over a symbolic representation of the QCIL prototype to Dr. Sudhir Mishra, Director General (BrahMos) DRDO and CEO & MD, BrahMos Aerospace.
The Quad Launcher is suitable for warships which have space constraints to accommodate a Vertical Launch Module.
L&T Defence, the defence arm of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and one of the leading industry partners of BrahMos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. (BAPL), successfully completed the design and prototype realisation of the ‘Quadruple Canisterised Inclined Launcher’ (QCIL or Quad Launcher) for BRAHMOS missiles and after rigorous trails handed over the prototype Quad Launcher to BAPL at an event held at L&T Defence’ Strategic Systems Complex near Pune, on May 5, 2018. The Quad Launcher is designed for launching BRAHMOS supersonic cruise missiles in an inclined configuration on-board Indian Naval ships. The launcher provides superior firepower as compared to the twin canister, deck mounted launchers and has a capability to support and launch four missiles in a single or salvo mode. The new Quad Launcher is suitable for warships which have space constraints to accommodate a Vertical Launch Module. Mr. Jayant Patil, Whole-time Director (Defence) and Member of L&T Board, handed over QCIL prototype to Dr. Sudhir Mishra, Director General (BrahMos) DRDO and CEO & MD, BrahMos Aerospace. The production units of the QCIL will be ready for deployment on Indian Naval Ships in next 18 months. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Jayant Patil said, “We have been associated with the development of BRAHMOS missile programme since 2000, when as part of the composite team led by DRDO, we engaged with the Russian Federation and embarked on this vast project. As proven partners of all variants of Naval missile launchers for BRAHMOS, we took up the design of the unique Quad Launcher and realised the prototype in 18 months. The Launcher underwent rigorous testing, including by the NPOM specialists, prior to receiving of production clearance. L&T will now take up the bulk production of the Quad Launchers.” While receiving the new launcher, Dr. Sudhir Mishra said, “BrahMos has taken an exemplary lead in the Indian Government’s ‘Make-In-India’ drive. In fact, BrahMos Aerospace practices ‘Design-In-India’ – the next level of ‘Make-In-India’, which has resulted in the establishment of a consortium of over 200 industries involved in the design, development, testing and production of various systems and sub-systems for the universal BRAHMOS missile and its various ground / air / sea based systems.” “The BrahMos concept of ‘Mind-to-Market’ has led to technology development along with skilled manpower creation and a huge business, thus leading to in-country wealth generation,” Dr. Mishra remarked while adding that, “Our major partner L&T is an ideal example of ‘Design-In-India’ and ‘Make-In-India’ today.” As a leading industry partner of BrahMos Aerospace, L&T has been closely involved in the design, development and production of the Launchers & Fire Control Systems for naval platforms as well as development and production of key aero-structural sections of the formidable BRAHMOS Weapon System.
BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) of India and NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM) of Russia and is one of the successful Make-in-India programs in defence. The company was established in India through an inter-Government agreement signed in 1998 between India and the Russian Federation. The company is responsible for designing, developing, producing and marketing the BRAHMOS supersonic cruise missiles with active participation of a consortium of Indian and Russian industries.
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Corporate IT Gives Wings to LTCEL’s Growth Ambitions
A group shot of the Corporate IT team, team from LTI, LTCEL leadership and business users involved in the ERP project.
Mr. Vinay Khargonkar, Head - Corporate IT, L&T, familiarising the senior leadership with the capabilities of the newly deployed ERP.
Mr. Arvind Garg, Executive Vice President & Head - Construction & Mining Machinery Business unveiling the ERP at the Go Live event on April 4, 2018.
Information Technology (IT) is supposed to enable business, not hinder its ability to function as it should. It is supposed to partner with it to solve complex issues and offer insights for timely and accurate decision making and fuel growth. For nearly seventeen years the Oracle Financials ERP that L&T Construction Equipment Limited (LTCEL) ran had served the company well by allowing it to do just that - automate key business processes and give users the desired visibility into the daily operations so that they could take timely decisions. And it all worked just fine, until the business realised that things could be better. LTCEL which operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary of L&T, manufactures and sells construction equipment. From high pressure hydraulic components and systems to earthmoving equipment, it offers all that businesses engaged in the sector could ask for and need. With the infrastructure sector especially the road construction segment witnessing renewed activity last year, the business hoped for an eventful 2018 (and beyond) but had little idea that the Oracle package at the heart of its IT setup didn’t quite cut it.
The Oracle Financials Suite deployed in 2001 had run its course and was not able to fully cater to LTCEL’s growing needs. L&T’s Corporate IT (CIT) team knew this. The team which had helped speed things up at L&T Construction & Mining Machinery Business (CMB) last year by implementing SAP HANA, knew that keeping the Oracle package on was a drain on LTCEL not just operationally but also in terms of the costs – over the years it had become increasingly dearer to run the suite since AMC fee and support costs had become unreasonably high.
Team CIT brought up its concerns to LTCEL management and recommended that it move to a more comprehensive suite of applications. After much education and deliberation on the ways in which a change could address the growth challenge, a decision was made to implement SAP. Interestingly, of all the L&T businesses, only LTCEL ran an Oracle suite while the rest had been standardised on SAP environments.
After taking in inputs from LTCEL business users, the Corporate IT team prepared a scope document and floated a request for proposal (RFP) for its various implementation partners. Nearly all the respondents came back with identical quotes and similar timelines that of 5-6 months. LTCEL couldn’t possibly accept anything later than March 31, 2018, for the simple reason that by April 2018 it was contractually bound to renew the AMC, something it wanted to avoid at all cost. The new ERP had to be up and running come April. Additionally, the quotations sent in by the respondents far exceeded LTCEL’s budget for the deployment. Nearly by 4X.
Seeing as how no vendor was willing to make any concessions on the implementation timeline or costs, Corporate IT stepped up to the plate and accepted the challenge. A core team comprising various stakeholders including a large number of business users from LTCEL, Corporate IT and LTI which was roped in as technology implementation partner for the project was formed. Going into the project, several discussions were held and the Corporate IT team came up with a detailed implementation plan and a timeline – that factored the Oracle AMC renewal date – was created. The project plan consisted implementation of SAP ERP - ECC 6.0 EHP8 on HANA Database along with six SAP modules viz. Production Planning, Quality Management, Materials Management, Sales & Distribution, Finance & Control and Document Management System. The Quality Management and Document Management modules were recommended especially by the Corporate IT team to lend added insights into the manufacturing set up at LTCEL. The team formally kicked off the project on December 6, 2017, at a meeting in which all the stakeholders were present.
Typically, IT projects, especially big-ticket deployments like ERP involve changes and it is not uncommon for the project scope to change mid-way or shortly after kick-off but rarely do projects ever witness requests that double the entire effort. Shortly after the project kick-off, the management at LTCEL made a request that altered the project scope completely. It insisted that that the project team keep two separate individual systems, one for LTCEL Machinery Works and one for LTCEL Hydraulic Works and do so within the cost and timelines agreed upon earlier.
LTCEL wanted to keep the two units separate in terms of their IT since it felt it would offer greater operational control over the two. While the request doubled Corporate IT’s efforts and the work of everyone involved in the project, the teams successfully delivered the two systems with all the promised features and functionalities as per the original timeline and cost.
The project went live on April 4, 2018. Besides the agreed upon deliverables, Corporate IT also delivered 70 mobile applications (developed on FIORI platform) for enhancing the user experience and productivity of LTCEL end users. Additionally, a new generation chatbot was created to help business users adapt to the new ERP. Typically, in new ERP deployments it’s often a struggle for end-users to adapt to the system as they unaware of the new transaction codes. The chatbot, built like a personal assistant for users, helps by responding to user queries and getting them acquainted with the system.
While it’s still early days for the system, the management at LTCEL appears pleased with the way things have gone thus far. Mr. Arvind Garg, Executive Vice President & Head - Construction & Mining Machinery Business, says that the timely deployment has saved the business a substantial sum of money which it would have had to pay to Oracle otherwise and that the robust system, powered by HANA, SAP’s in-memory database platform is far more efficient than the previous one. Mr. Keshav Kumar, Chief Executive, LTCEL, and Mr. S.R. Subramanian EVP & Head - Industrial Machinery & Products have also endorsed the successful completion of the project and appreciated the efforts put in by Corporate IT, LTCEL business users and local IT members who worked on the project along with Corporate IT for successfully deploying the ERP package.
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L&T Completes $803m KOC Project
The gathering centre is part of KOC’s long-term strategy to develop the North Kuwait (NK) fields and increase crude production.
Larsen & Toubro has completed work on Kuwait Oil Company’s (KOC) Gathering Centre 30. The company was awarded the $803m contract for the project by the state-owned upstream operator in July 2014. Interestingly, two other Gathering Centre contracts viz. GC-29 and GC-31 which were awarded to Dodsal and Petrofac respectively, around at the same time as L&T remain under execution.
The three gathering centre projects are part of KOC’s long-term strategy to develop the North Kuwait (NK) fields and increase crude production. To increase crude capacity, water will be injected into the reservoirs to enhance oil production. These gathering centres are intended to deal with the increased oil and associated water production.
Each gathering centre is expected to handle up to 100,000 b/d of oil, 240,000 barrels of water a day and 240 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) of associated gas.
KOC originally expected the three projects to all be competed in December 2018, but only L&T could meet its deadline and deliver GC-30 as per its expectations.
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360 MW Bheramara Combined-Cycle Power Plant Commissioned
A sweeping view of the newly commissioned 360MW Bheramara Combined-Cycle Power Plant.
January marked the commissioning of the 360MW Bheramara Combined-Cycle Power (CCP) Plant in Bangladesh. The state-of-the-art power plant was handed over to North West Power Generation Company Limited (NWPGCL), a fully owned subsidiary of Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), on January 5, 2018. The customer, NWPGCL declared the power plant to have a capacity of 410MW following its performance testing. Located in Bheramara of Kushtia District in the western sector of Bangladesh, the power plant is expected to provide for roughly 5% of the total electricity demand in the country.
L&T’s scope of work included design, engineering, supply, installation and commissioning of the complete power plant on a back-to-back turnkey basis for Marubeni Corporation of Japan, with Gas Turbines, Steam Turbine and Generators from Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Japan. Funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), work on the project began in July 2014 and the power plant was partly commissioned earlier in Open Cycle, which was handed over to NWPGCL for commercial operation in May 2017.
The project has been executed by the Gas Based Power Projects Business Unit of L&T, based out of Vadodara. L&T’s well-established strengths in design, engineering and construction, combined with robust quality and safety standards and on-time delivery, are vital contributors to its success in the power sector.
L&T has executed several large gas-based power projects on EPC basis for government utilities and independent power producers in India and abroad. In Bangladesh, L&T had completed and handed over the 225 MW Sikalbaha Combined Cycle Power Plant to Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) in December 2017. This power plant, located near the port city of Chittagong in southeastern Bangladesh, was inaugurated on December 10, 2017, by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Wazed.
For the Sikalbaha project, L&T’s scope of work included design, engineering, supply, installation and commissioning of the complete power plant on a turnkey basis, with Gas Turbines, Steam Turbine and Generators from Siemens AG, Germany. Commenting on the Bheramara project completion, Mr. Shailendra Roy, CEO & Managing Director, L&T Power & Whole-Time Director, L&T, said, “The fact that two power plants were commissioned in quick succession in Bangladesh, one in December 2017 and the other in January 2018, speaks volumes about L&T’s scale of operations. We thank the Bangladesh authorities for reposing faith in our capabilities.” L&T is currently executing two more gas-based power projects in Bangladesh - 400 MW Bibiyana III Combined Cycle Power Project and 400 MW Bibiyana South Combined Cycle Power Project of BPDB.
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