The brief
The client needed accommodation for a large shutdown crew at a working refinery in Gujarat. The crew was arriving on a fixed date, and the refinery wasn't going to pause for anyone. That meant 48 MS frame cabins — sleeping quarters, washrooms, a mess, and site offices — delivered and working in six weeks.
Planning around a live site
A refinery isn't an ordinary construction site. Every vehicle needs a permit, every lift needs a plan, and hot work near process units is off limits. We spent the first week on paperwork and surveys before a single panel was cut.
- Delivery windows agreed in advance with refinery security
- A lift plan prepared for every crane movement
- All welding and cutting done in our factory, so none was needed on site
- One point of contact on our side for the client's safety team
Building in parallel
Six weeks only worked because the factory and the site ran at the same time. While our yard built the cabins in batches of eight, a small civil crew prepared the plinths and utility connections on site. Each batch shipped as soon as it passed inspection.
The site team never waited for a cabin, and the factory never waited for the site. That's the whole trick.
Project lead, Fourwalls
What we'd do differently
Two batches were held at the gate for a day because a permit hadn't been renewed. It didn't cost us the deadline, but it came close. On projects like this we now build a buffer day into every delivery window and check permit dates weekly instead of trusting the original schedule.
The result
All 48 cabins were in place and connected before the crew arrived. The same units are built to be lifted out and reused once the shutdown ends.
