KEC International: Digital Transformation

*The case study is only to be used for campus recruitment purpose

KEC International is a billion plus dollar Engineering Procurement & Construction (EPC)
behemoth. The primary business is EPC of Transmission & Distribution infrastructure. Over
the recent years, KEC has diversified into EPC of Railways, Solar and Civil construction
businesses. KEC has operations across South Asia, Middle East, Far East, Africa and CIS
countries. The company has footprints in 50+ countries and more than 50% business comes
from international markets. Today, KEC International stands at the cusp of growth driven by
significant investment in Indian infrastructure space and rapid international expansion.

Introduction to the case

Digital is upending the existing processes and disrupting the way businesses are being done.
Digital Transformation (through SMAC - social, mobility, analytics and cloud) is expected to
shape the strategy and growth of organizations across business segments. We are on the
threshold of a dramatic digital disintermediation driving the operating model for growth and
sustainability.
KEC has been a leader in adopting digital and has undertaken a journey towards convergence
of its business, people, & all stake holders.

Overview business operations

Transmission & Distribution(T&D): KEC does turnkey projects in power infrastructure space
 constructing transmission line and Substations. KEC is a partner of choice for large scale
complex projects executed in most difficult terrains i.e mountains, hills, rivers, deserts, snow
etc. KEC is known in the industry for On time / Ahead of time delivery and high focus on
quality.
Typical value chain of T&D business:

Bidding Plant Logistics Project

Manager Head Manager Manager

Internal : Customers
Tendering &
Marketing

Customer Customer

Factory

External Logistics
Engineering
Bought Out

R&D
Manager
Project Sites
Supply Chain
1

Most of the projects are understaken on turnkey basis, constituting activites such as below:

Transmission tower construction

Site/route/area survey and assessment
Tower design (KEC has a in-house engineering team), prototyping and testing
Procurement of raw materials and Bought Out items
Tower manufacturing (Backward intergrated 3 factories at Nagpur, Jabalpur & Jaipur)
Logistics of tower and other Bought out items ( e.g. conductor, hardware etc) to sites
Construction - Foundation, Erection and Conductor stringing
Project Management

Some of the major complexity involved are:

Proper project planning, coordination and monitoring across the value chain
 across large number of projects (Currently projects are being undertaken across
37 countries)
Engineering optimization for tower and other structures
Large number of different tower members (typically there are 300~400 different
types of angle members in a tower & there could be 6~7 different type of towers
in a project ) correct bundling, sorting and erection of the same
Ensuring visibility and planning across the supply chain; Management of
inventory acorss stores at various sites
Ensuring adherance to safety standards across the diverse workforce (including
contractor workforce)
Contract Management, etc

KEC has been adopting newer technoloigcal methods to achieve faster execution e.g. use of
drones in difficult area for stringing of conductor, adoption of LIDAR technology for route
surveys, etc.

Distribution:
In the distribution business, KEC is into constrcution of Substation (both Air insulted & Gas
insulated). These type of projects are again turnkey projects where entire end to end execution,
from site survey to execution and commissioning is carried out by KEC.

Railways, Solar & Civil

Turnkey EPC construction from design to execution

Deliverables

Part A
Analysis of digital initiatives and best practices adopted by leading international and
 domestic EPC players across industries (e.g Power, infra , Oil & Gas , Railways,
transportation etc.)

Part B
Suggest one digital proposal which could help KEC disrupt the business

The digital proposal should contain following information in details

Problem Statement
Suggested Solution
Suggestive Implementation method
Cost implication
Impact Both Financial & Non Financial

Illustrative Areas

Construction Supply Chain Others

Optimize end-to-end the Predictive price indicator
Project planning,
integrated value based on historical
execution & Forecasting
chainfrom plant to site bidding
Plant productivity
Site workforce
improvement (Utilization Worker safety
management
of IoT solutions)
Enforce rational &
Execution efficiency
appropriate working Customer Interfacing
(Use of technology)
standards
Please dont restrict the ideas to the above mentioned areas
 Example:

Business drivers
Worker Health & Safety
Compliance to Government norms
Project and worker productivity insights

Description
High visibility jackets as used in the construction
Tagging unit fitted in the jacket: GPRS, GPS
Geo-fencing enabled
In future, health monitoring device may be embedded
Unit needs to be charged regularly
Once activated, data will be captured on Cloud platform
Productivity analysis from the data captured