• India’s largest coal-fired power plant
• Construction of five 800-megawatt units
• Delivered by subsidiary of Tata Power
• Managed 20,000 documents and correspondence items a month
• Improved efficiency and control

Client

Coastal Gujarat Power Limited (CGPL) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Power, India’s largest privately owned power company. Tata Power operates in all areas of the power sector, and is involved in a number of large, multibillion dollar public-private partnership (PPP) developments across India. CGPL was formed specifically to oversee the development of the Mundra UMPP (Ultra Mega Power Project).

Project

The Mundra UMPP will have a capacity of 4,000 megawatts and will be India’s largest coal-fired power plant and be the first to utilize new supercritical boiler technology – making it the most energy efficient plant in the country. Located on a 1,000 hectare site near Mundra Port in Gujarat, the project involves the construction of five, 800 megawatt units. When complete, it will generate and supply power to five states – Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab. 

Challenges

The design and build of the plant includes firms from India, Korea, Japan, Germany and the UK. CGPL soon identified that using traditional tools for managing project information wouldn’t support its needs.

A representative of CGPL, said, “For the first few months of the project, we used a combination of FTP systems, hard copies and email to communicate. This meant that our important data was stored across multiple locations, which in turn, made searching for corresponding files and responses difficult and very slow.

“We knew that a project of this scale and complexity would generate many thousands of documents and correspondence items, so we knew that there was a much more efficient way to deliver our project.” 

Solution

CGPL selected to implement the Aconex online collaboration platform, including its Supplier Documents functionality, across the project. 

Results

Instant access to files

More than 75 organizations based in India and abroad used Aconex to collaborate. Project participants used the system to manage more than 150,000 documents and 300,000 mail items – sometimes more than 20,000 items a month.

The CGPL representative said, “Since Aconex stores files centrally in a common location, important information is not misplaced or lost when personnel move to another project or leave the organization. Searching and sharing of documents across geographies is very easy.

“The Aconex system is globally recognized to be reliable and project personnel can depend on the system without fear of losing data.

“As Aconex is not a license based system, you can engage all project participants on a single system without excluding anyone to keep your costs down. This helps ensure that nothing is lost or unable to be found, as it can only be in one place – on Aconex. Further, as everything is stored on Aconex, there is no debate over which document version is correct and there is no duplication.”

“The Aconex system is globally recognized to be reliable.”

CGPL representative

Complete archive of information

“As all our data is managed on Aconex, we have a high level of traceability of decisions and agreements made throughout the project. Information cannot be deleted from the system and any edits that are made to files are logged in the audit trail – maintaining a complete archive. It is expected to reduce instances of disputes, delays and claims, thereby saving time and money,” said the CGPL representative.

Implementation, training and support

He added: “Aconex training has been readily provided on demand at our Backbay Corporate office in Mumbai and they have regularly been conducting training sessions at the Mundra project site, even though it is located in a remote area of Gujarat.

“All our vendors have been provided exhaustive hands-on training. The Aconex helpdesk is supportive and prompt in acting on requests. We have also had many regular post-training follow-ups and project health checks – which has gone a long way to help CGPL manage the quality of documentation on the project.”