Elecrama, the biggest showcase of the electricity industry in India happens once every two years. As always everyone connected with the event was pretty excited, tense and curious. We wanted to present Secure differently and decided to have a mezzanine floor and real trees at the stall; the latter was a challenge for us and for our fabricator, Brade. We were showing 24 live systems on round tables, with a tree at the centre of each table.
There were many challenges to get the right trees, which were of the right height and that could survive for seven to eight days in an environment full of dust, paint fumes and with no sunlight. Apart from the trees, we needed a design which would help us show our products and systems (which would be live). That meant designing round tables with products, jigs, many wires, sockets and of course trees, which would have to be watered every day. Brade came up with a good design. After a lot of effort Mini ma’am got the right trees, but we were running behind schedule.
I was a bit relaxed this time as I had to be there when the stall was being dismantled, which is much easier than the building stage. But a few days before the show I was asked to go for the build, as Avi sir was busy with a medical emergency in his family. We (Sankalp, Chitra, the application engineers and I) reached there. Mini ma’am was already there. We were working hard to get the stall ready on time. Also we were aiming for a zero defect stall. As time passed, we realised that the goal of a zero defect stall was not that easy. Challenges started from the first day.
The tables were designed in a way that required the trees to be put in first, and then for the meters to be installed and made live. This meant that once a table was assembled, we could not take trees out, even if they were dying. And the bad news was that trees started dying because of dust, paint and lack of sunlight. Mini ma’am arranged two extra trees to replace the dead trees. Another challenge was to water them every evening as the jig was built around them. Basically, we were playing with a dangerous combination: electricity and water. Somehow we managed to separate the water part from the electricity.
After the collaborative efforts of application engineers, CCG and the team from Brade, the stall was ready. We were happy and satisfied because we had achieved what we were aiming for. D day arrived… everyone who had been working for the last four days in jeans and t-shirts, heavily bearded, handkerchief and masks on faces, reached the stall suited-booted and clean shaven. Our stall was looking fabulous. Everybody loved the stall. Ananya sir’s idea worked very well. Probably it was the best stall we have built so far.
Today was the first day out of five, and three to four trees were almost dead.
But wait.. picture abhi baaki hai mere dost!! (The movie has not finished, there is more to come)
The exhibition had started. The team of fabricators was about to leave… but Mini ma’am, Sankalp and I were worried. Today was the first day out of five, and three to four trees were almost dead. We realised that these trees would not survive till the fifth day and a few more trees could die too. And to change these trees after the start of the exhibition was next to impossible, or let’s say there were many challenges in doing so, of which here are a few:
Arranging the new trees in a few hours.
Most of the workers / labour from Brade had departed once the show got started.
We would need a new podium (upper part), since when we pulled out the old tree and replaced it, we would have to destroy the podium.
Re-printing the graphic on the podium.
Permission to work after the exhibition closed in the evening, as we could not do this while the show was on.
Electricity for the machine to cut the podium; the power is cut to the stands after show time.
Maintaining the cleanliness of carpet whilst pulling out the old, and bringing in the new tree.
We had to think about how we could overcome all the challenges, but we were not able to.
Suket sir came to our stall. He liked the stall but pointed to the dying trees and suggested we replace them. During the discussion Sandeep (Brade) was also there. Unfortunately he didn’t know Suket sir as he had never interacted with him before. Looking at the challenges, Sandeep said “Ye to nahi ho payega!! (this is not possible)”. Suket sir turned to us and said calmly, “Ye to karna padega”(this will have to be done).
We had to think about how we could overcome all the challenges, but we were not able to. We were exhausted physically and mentally. For the last four nights we had hardly slept at all, since we were building the stall. Ananya sir followed Suket sir to the stall. We told him about the situation we found ourselves in. He thought for a minute and gave us an idea; he said we should cut the podium carefully and avoid damage. He was looking very confident while discussing his ideas and was sure that the idea would work. After meeting him the scenario had changed. It was as if we were recharged. We were feeling energetic. We distributed the work and started implementing.
Mini ma’am and B.D Joshi ji would arrange three new trees the next morning. Brade promised to arrange the four to five people we needed. We decided to cut the podium from the centre, instead of making a new podium, all we needed was to make a clean cut so that we could put it back neatly and then re-print the graphic. We ordered the re-print well in advance and the supplier said he would deliver it early morning next day. Now the big challenge was to get permission to work on the stall after show time. They denied us permission, but after much discussion they allowed us to work for one hour. To cut the three podiums from the top and pull out the heavy trees was a tough task in one hour.
Picture abhi bhi baaki hai (it is still not the end).
While the organisers allowed us to work, they didn’t give us electricity supply. Again we were stuck, as we were not able to run the machines to cut the podium. We ran out to the food area and requested the shop owners to give us an electricity point for half an hour. They said they were not allowed to do this and asked us to take permission from the organisers. We were back to square one. Finally we got permission. Now we had to take the big and heavy podiums to the food area which was quite far. Mini ma’am, Sankalp, Jamna, four or five people from Brade and I were trying hard to make the change. Everyone was putting in their best. And we managed this.
Our next task was to replace the trees which we were expecting next morning at 7 am. We were aiming to replace them before 9 am (show start time). Again we took permission to enter early. Sankalp, Jamna, Mini ma’am and I reached the venue at 7 am. Another hurdle (and not the last) we heard that the truck with the trees was stuck in traffic. It reached at around 8.30 am, by which time people had started coming to the show area. We found the trees were shorter than the others, and we needed to arrange something to put below the pots. We ran out to find something and we found a few bricks here and there. We took these bricks to create the base. Fortunately we also found wooden blocks and we used them to increase the height of the trees. Our last task was to replace the trees and prints and to clean these podiums, and the stand.
We managed to complete all this by 10 am. We were happy and satisfied.
It seemed as if we had just finished a roller-coaster ride that had lasted one whole day. The stall was looking beautiful and we were feeling proud to have achieved our objective. Here let me confess, the important thing is that we didn’t go with the idea Ananya sir gave us. Once he left we re-grouped. We came up with a different idea and completed the job at hand. But the key was the energy and confidence he gave us in a five minute discussion. He showed confidence in us and that led to success.
Again we Semsites proved that our core beliefs, collaborative work and team work are our strength.
Together we can.