The pre-engineered steel building (PEB) industry is one of the fastest growing technologies in the construction sector. PEB refers to steel buildings that are usually engineered at factory and assembled at site. The built-up sections are normally fabricated at factory to exact size, transported, and then assembled with bolted connections at the site. These are becoming increasingly common across different applications both in rural and urban areas. Various advantages of PEB are custom-aided designs, faster installation, factory-controlled quality, large spans, earthquake resistant, recyclability, ease of expansion, return on resale, etc.PEB is an advanced, eco-friendly and sustainable construction technology, which has grown by leaps and bounds over the last two decades of its existence in India. Initially, it was a huge challenge changing the mindset from sticking with conventional buildings to adopting a more mechanised and automated construction. However, over these years, the industry has evolved from designing, manufacturing and constructing simple box like warehouses, factories and low-rise buildings to complex industrial buildings with 500 MT cranes to multi-level structures with heavy loadings and up to height of 70 m. Further, the industry has ventured into power plants and steel plants to high-rise structures to data centres, each of which are unique, complex and innovative in nature. This has enabled us to provide customers with the latest and updated designs and construction methodologies with high safety standards.Real pioneerKirby Building Systems & Structures India (Kirby India) is a pioneer and market leader in design, fabrication, supply and construction of highly customised and quality PEBs. These are for industrial, warehousing, infrastructure, commercial, institutional and many other specialty applications. The major change we brought through PEB is ‘single source responsibility’, where a complete structure right from engineering to fabrication to construction is handled by one company providing a one-stop solution to customers. The company has over 350 people using latest design and drafting softwares, catering to customers in India, Middle East and Africa and South-East Asia through its Global Center of Engineering Excellence (CEE) setup in Hyderabad.Kirby India has state-of-the-art world-class manufacturing facilities at Hyderabad and Haridwar, with a total annual installed capacity of 200,000 MT. More than two-third of our business comes from repeat customers, which is a testimony in itself and proves loyalty of our customers towards Kirby’s products and services and how strong the brand recall remains among the stakeholders over the last two decades of its existence in India. This further pushes us to work towards making customers more delighted during their journey of project execution with us. In addition, we had to constantly innovate even more and expand our portfolio with the rapidly expanding market. Particularly today, with rapid changes in technology on an almost daily basis, no one can afford to just stand still.Kirby India has implemented many new methodologies in PEB construction such as POD lifting, which results in faster project completion, fixing of deck sheeting from bottom, new safety practices, newer technologies such as digitisation, etc. With over 20 years in India and 45 years globally, the company is known for its engineering capabilities and is trusted as the most reliable partner for any type of PEB requirement across all the customer segments. Kirby India has an enviable network of sales in 21 cities and 135 certified builders as our channel partners who work for construction of buildings across India. In addition to this, the company has executed 35,000+ buildings spread over 40 million sq m of built-up area for a wide range of applications catering to different industry segments. The company is accredited with ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and OHSAS 45001:2018 certifications.Kirby India takes any type of project, be it is small or big without any size limitations, catering to all kinds of customers. Indian corporates, multinationals from manufacturing and service segments, warehouse owners, logistics park developers, entrepreneurs, builders, developers, contractors, architects, etc, belonging to all industry segments and their sub segments, form part of our clientele base. Kirby India is a one-stop destination for customers as their most trusted partners for their steel building requirement by becoming a part of their journey in growth and success. Sustainable and eco-friendlySteel forms a major component of any PEB and is the only key raw material for any type of steel building. Steel is witnessing an increase in the acceptability as one of the key building materials apart from the other existing building materials. Steel has got several distinct properties and has an edge when compared to other building materials. Also, with government giving impetus to steel industry to increase their capacity to produce an estimated 300 million tonne by 2030-31, consumption of steel will increase in the coming years. The per capita consumption of steel has increased from 57.6 kg to 74.1 kg during the last five years and is estimated to reach up to 160 kg by 2030-31.Steel buildings are steadily witnessing an increase in their market share in the construction and civil engineering sector. Steel construction is a good option for diversity of projects for many reasons, including durability, affordability and sustainability. Steel is versatile in nature, tensile, recyclable, scrap value and can withstand external pressures such as earthquakes when used in the form of a building. It has a high strength-to-weight ratio, which means it has high strength per unit mass. So, no matter how large the overall structure is, the steel sections are stronger than other building materials and has a good load carrying capacity. Steel can be easily fabricated as it is flexible and can be moulded into any shape without changing its properties and also converted into sheets or other products as per the design.PEB is one of the choices when it comes to sustainable and eco-friendly construction as steel is 100 per cent recyclable and can be re-used for making other products again and again when compared to conventional buildings. Kirby India is leading the green construction in the country through its PEB technology, thereby contributing to the green building movement with the company being a member of Indian Green Building Council (IGBC).The government is focused on reforms such as Atma Nirbhar Bharat, Make in India, PLI scheme, increasing manufacturing share in the GDP, higher infrastructure spend, etc. In addition, rising acceptability of sustainable and green construction technology such as PEB is likely to create a much more vibrant market for steel construction in India. Kirby India is definitely poised for a big PEB growth wave and will take India to a higher growth trajectory by contributing to infrastructure development through its sustainable and advanced steel construction technology.About the author: D Raju, Managing Director & CEO, Kirby Building Systems & Structures India, is also Head for Kirby International Group which includes regions like Middle East, Africa, South-East Asia, India and CIS countries. He has a wide-ranging experience of over 40 years. As part of Kirby Building Systems, he is instrumental in introducing the PEB technology in India and has helped build the industry and the country's phenomenal industrial and urban infrastructure growth over the last two decades.