The operations and maintenance market in India is witnessing rapid growth in terms of end to end services. A major segment of clients is expecting O&M service providers to be more than a resource facilitator and to be engaged in process integration, identification of operational challenges and active consultation with a goal of maximizing productivity by optimising resources.
Meeting the consumer goals on productivity is one of the key consumer expectations along with maintaining high standards in Environment, Health and Safety as well as ensuring compliance with all applicable statutes, particularly labour laws. However, the fragmented nature of the O&M sector and lack of compliance are two major bottlenecks in ensuring quality services being delivered to customers.
Unilift Cargo Systems Pvt. Ltd. (UNILIFT), is a second-generation end to end operation and maintenance service partner with an equipment fleet of over 250 being handled with a workforce of 2200 on a pan-India scale.
Pranay Aggarwal, Director and CEO of UNILIFT says, “We believe in having the right people do the right job. Having worked with some of India’s largest manufacturing groups and business houses, we have understood that aspects like safety, compliance and process innovation are as important as production output for the clients.
We invest heavily on our EHS and Compliance efforts, both in terms of personnel and technology, and have distinct verticals and division heads as we consider these as distinctive and equally important branches as production-oriented operations.”
Consumer-centric Approach
Pranay continues, “The client requirements govern the services we offer to them. It depends on their expectation; we are capable of managing a full-fledged engineering store, warehouse or even a production plant to their optimum capacities. We have different types of service offerings which are all various activities relating to the full-fledged operation and maintenance of a production unit. We provide services such as forklift operations and maintenance, warehouse operations, engineering and general store management, end-to-end operations and maintenance, in-plant EHS services, etc.”
Clients today demand consultation from their service partner in order to stay ahead of the information curve. Most of them expect their partners like UNILIFT to understand the bottlenecks in operation by getting acquainted with the process and help implement better processes and technologies to increase output. Pranay adds, “Previously, the manufacturing sector adopted a fragmented model, for example, they would identify vendors for individual portions of the process and end up with different vendors for technical personnel, non-technical personnel, equipment, etc. .
There is a huge shift in terms of clients preferring end to end O&M service partners in the past 5-7 years and it has strengthened the O&M market in India. From an operational standpoint, the major reasons for a client’s preference to O&M model is the end to end ownership and accountability being provided by a single partner and the reduced costs of overheads and management.”
The Road Ahead
Initiated in the late 80’s by Mr. Vinod Kumar Aggarwal, UNILIFT has a significant reputation as a reliable and trusted business partner among India’s largest industrial houses and business groups. The company turnover has a CAGR of 20% over the past five years. UNILIFT has exceeded the industry standards with its OSHA ratings and has achieved a 99.98% incident free shifts score in the recorded period.
Pranay concludes, “We are focussed on technology and have invested in development of tech-based solutions because we believe the industry revolution 4.0 is here and will be increasingly relevant in the months and years to come. We believe that technology and innovation are going to play huge roles in shaping the future of O&M as well as the manufacturing industry as a whole. Reduction of carbon footprint and intensive focus on environment friendly solutions are also likely to become benchmark requirements and the winners are going to be determined by readiness and ability to evolve.”
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