Rituraj Katiyar, Vice President, ReNew Power Private Limited
At the seminar on Integrated Facility Management, Rituraj Katiyar, Vice President, ReNew Power Private Limited spoke about choosing the right technology, empowering FM teams and more. Excerpts:
Adaptive change
Earlier, MERV 10 or MERV 8 used to be good enough, but after Covid guidelines came out, we have had to move to MERV 13 filters.
Suddenly, a lot of manufacturers started to sell MERV 13 filters. What they will not tell you is that introducing this in your existing system can drastically slow down or stop air flow. The entire duct system will need to be changed, and new motors will have to be placed; the total cost runs into several crores.
Instead, we decided to procure polarised filters which can be fitted in with the same MERV 10 filters we used to use earlier. The placement does not change, and the new arrangement is as effective as a MERV 13 filter.
Purchasing power
At ReNew, we get empowerment in terms of purchasing power. You should also empower your main operations team; they should have the ability to buy products. Whatever I feel the company needs, I can decide to procure myself. We don’t need to separately speak to the purchasing team, which, on a lighter note, can make the process of buying even a bottle, a 10-day activity.
This empowerment is very important for both the FM team and the client team. Quality and speed can both be improved at the same time.
Safety first
We do a toolbox talk before work starts. With the tech team, we developed a software in which, before work starts, the person doing the toolbox talk has to feed in data and pictures of the work conditions, the harness condition, site conditions, safety equipment conditions, even conditions of the manpower which is going to do the job.
And after all of these have been entered, the supervisor is alerted in the app. He verifies all these data points and gives a go ahead; only then is a documented work permit ID is generated.
This is one of the best practices we follow in our organisation. If we follow this properly, the risk of accidents can be drastically reduced.
Sustainability initiatives
We have a Net Zero target for 2030 when it comes to our work operations; as a company, we are already way ahead of where we need to be.
We are focusing a lot on energy conservation. We have installed sensors in our offices, purchased filters for our HVAC systems, cut down the requirement for power by installing solar panels. Our urinals have been made waterless, and we have installed misting faucet nozzles on all our taps.
All our fit outs are gold leaf certified. Currently, our operations and maintenance is able to run on platinum certification.
We are no-plastics, and do not use any single use plastics. We have applied for LEED certification for platinum standards, which means we will not be giving any of our waste to landfills. Whatever waste is generated will be reused or given to vendors who will reuse or recycle it. All our horticulture is done with manure generated from wet waste that we produce in our offices.
