In today’s age of smart cities, Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) service providers play an important role in constructing environment-friendly and long-lasting structures, without causing much harm to the environment. They help in creating impressive, flawless, and convenient smart buildings. These service providers employ cutting-edge technologies, innovative plans, and able manpower to create the ultimate smart infrastructure.
MEP engineering is the science and art of planning, designing, and managing building services. Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing needs are the fundamental requirements of modern construction projects. A MEP system can be considered as the central nervous system of a building which creates comfort feature of a structure and makes a building liveable. MEP consulting services are the key requirements of construction related projects. No matter if you are an architect, an owner of a building project or an engineer; these services will make a difference in the value of the project.
One such leading name in the domain of MEP services is DesignTree Service Consultants Pvt Ltd. DesignTree is a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy company founded in March 2008 by dynamic and innovative professionals to bridge the gap between the ever-changing needs of construction industry and current consultancy services available. The company is focused on providing one stop service/solution with emphasis on client requirements with responsive, agile, hands on, and innovative approach to all prospective clients. They assist with designing, decision making, cost estimation, construction administration, documentation, building management, and building maintenance.
DesignTree delivers systems that satisfy building owners and occupants. DesignTree consists of a group of engineers with rich experience in structural and building services in the engineering industry. The people associated with this consultancy have a cumulative professional experience exceeding 400 man-years. They have served at senior positions in various organizations in India.
Dedicated Leadership
DesignTree is marching ahead towards excellence under the visionary stewardship of B.O. Prasanna Kumar, the Co-Founder and Joint Managing Director, and B. Manjunath, the Co-Founder and Director. Mr. Kumar possesses over three decades of rich experience of carrying out design services like water supply system, sewerage network, sewage treatment plants, water treatment plants, solid waste management, and so on. He is a seasoned consulting engineer who has designed over thousand projects includes residential, IT commercial, and a lot more.
Mr. Manjunath has been involved in carrying out design services for over 26 years. He has offered various services such as Fire Protection & Life Safety System, industrial piping including steam boilers, compressed air, vacuum system, and so on, for residential campuses, hotels, hospitals, factory complexes, software parks, and commercial buildings in coordination with reputed Indian and international architects.
Overcoming the Odds Confidently
Team DesignTree believes that there is a continuing and growing need for design engineers to be mindful of project budgets and provide the next level of ‘value engineering’ to projects. This, though, may have consequence on their own budgets as clients have an increasing desire to explore every design option in detail. The company believes that fee management is vital to success, not only for the design office, but also to the client and his project to ensure he retains the resources to complete his project.
It further opines that engineers need to keep abreast of municipal and national codes and standards which are developing and are becoming more formalized into written codes. Approval processes are evolving more and more into online formats. Every changing municipal bylaw is many a times more stringent than national standards to suit to local requirements. Team DesignTree states, “Keeping abreast with these dynamics, engineering it is an art of balancing design and the budget in the mind of our clients.”
Opinions about the Industry
Team DesignTree believes that although most other industries have undergone tremendous changes over the last few decades and have reaped the benefits of process and product innovations, the Engineering and Construction sector has been hesitant about fully embracing the latest technological opportunities, and its labour productivity has stagnated accordingly.
This unimpressive track record can be attributed to various internal and external challenges: the persistent fragmentation of the industry, inadequate collaboration with suppliers and contractors, the difficulties in recruiting a talented workforce, and insufficient knowledge transfer from project to project. Team DesignTree is of the opinion that the industry, more particularly, MEP services has vast potential.
Additionally, digitalization, innovative technologies, and new construction techniques play an important role in improving productivity and efficiency. For instance, the rapid emergence of augmented reality, 3D scanning and printing, Building Information Modelling (BIM), autonomous equipment, and advanced building materials – all of them have now reached market maturity.
The company believes that by adopting and exploiting these innovations, companies will boost productivity, streamline their project management and procedures, and enhance quality and safety. To capture all this potential, the industry will have to put a committed and concerted effort across many aspects, from technology, operations, and strategy to personnel and regulation.
Effortless Coordination and Employee Protection
The COVID-19 Pandemic has wreaked havoc across the world by infecting people and threatening lives. It has negatively impacted the global economy with serious consequences across all communities and individuals. The virus has derailed the worldwide efforts to achieve sustainable development goals, while paralyzing societies and economies.
Team DesignTree states, “How to minimize impact and survival was the biggest task of year 2020 on business, its performance results and, most importantly, on employees – these were the main issues of concern for every company leader like us”. The company has built a coherent model of, and capabilities for, virtual and in-person work combination. DesignTree believes that risk assessment and consultation with the employees is very important for setting up and implementing physical distancing measures at the workplace.
Accordingly, it implemented modification of workstations, changed the use of common spaces, and encouraged own transport, split teams, and other measures to reduce social mixing at the workplace. When physical distancing measures at the workplace are not feasible for specific work tasks, the company considers whether the work can be suspended or can be completed from home. It also applies additional protective measures such as the enhanced hand hygiene, face mask, ventilation, and disinfection.
Words of Wisdom
Mr. Prasanna and Mr. Manjunath state, “Critical thinking, people skills, leadership, problem-solving, and a winning attitude is key to success. Create inclination to enjoy the problem-solving process. Using critical thinking skills and developing path forward options is truly intriguing. As an entrepreneur, it is very gratifying being a leader, leading a team through an evergreen vision in which you have created.”
Mr. Prasanna and Mr. Manjunath advise the budding MEP consultants to develop an attitude for researching and staying abreast of the building codes that govern the work. Subscribing to MEP related associations that discuss commercial and residential development topics and market trends can be helpful. It is essential to build an extensive library of self-help and technical books. They further suggest them to take time off to attend applicable training be it technical or personal development.
The Future Landscape
DesignTree’s long term goal is to take on bigger, more challenging targets so that it can assess abilities. The company believes that often the short-term goals are stepped to achieve the longer-term goals. It is planning to venture into knowledge process outsourcing of MEP services globally.
Furthermore, DesignTree’s immediate targeted growth is to harbour 450 talented professional team in MEP. It intends to expand BIM capability used in the planning and design of projects, for creating and managing all the information on a project – before, during, and after construction; it is the digital description of every aspect of the built asset. It is a move away from two-dimensional technical drawings and extends to 3D spatial dimensions such as width, height, and depth but also includes 4D which is time and 5D which is cost.
Thereby, it focuses on creating a virtual information model, which can be handed from the design team to the main contractor and subcontractors. The company also plans to increase the overall value of the DesignTree in terms of reputation.
Kindly contact on the following email ids for more information:
prasanna@designtreeconsultants.com manjunath@designtreeconsultants.com
