For us at Haat, every new project throws UP new challenges. While this is welcome because it tests one’s skills, it makes us more careful and vigilant. In spite of this, uncharted areas appear from nowhere posing problems which seem insurmountable. While our people face, act and resolve these issues in as a short a time as possible, challenges yet not tackled cause perplexity and pose severe challenges, becoming a malady and questioning the possibility of resolution.

The latest challenge came while executing a large contract involving a wide configuration of incinerator equipment for use in an oil field overseas. We encountered no issues with manufacturing, fabrication, sub-vendor controls, supplies, or quality, but what tested our abilities was a single container load of equipment out of 29 container loads.

This project involved stuffing and supplying these 29 container loads of equipment from the ports of Chennai and Nhava Sheva, Mumbai. While 28 containers were stuffed, despatched and shipped as per plan, the 29th container had heavy equipment, with a total net weight of approximately 30 tonnes and posed many a challenge to men and machines and the following sequence of events made this seem almost like mission impossible!

The container, which was a special flat rack with odd dimensional cargo, had to be obtained in a hurry as the vessel space has already been booked and blocked. However, the requisite load bearing crane was not immediately available cause concerns with respect to the deadline.

Even before the stuffing, it became clear that this container would require a circuitous route to Nhava Sheva port due to height restrictions that prevented it from passing through highway tunnels.

The logistics team estimated it would take two days for delivery, but the freight forwarder convinced the driver to attempt it in one day and the container left the vendor's factory at midnight. The driver promised delivery by the next evening, but this did not happen. Despite his best intentions, perhaps the weight of the cargo caused two tyres on the trailer truck to burst midway, resulting in the container arriving at the customs checkpoint after nearly 60 hours. Even this was possible only because the freight forwarder rushed to the incident location at 12 midnight and arranged for a crane to lift the container so the tyres could be changed.

Eventually, the container reached the customs checkpoint, where it was yet another exercise in futility. The container was required to be unpacked for a detailed examination. The cargo was packed with several layers of materials and vacuum-sealed, all of which had to be removed.

The examination could not take place on Friday because the examiner was unavailable, and with the weekend approaching, the vessel left port without our cargo.

On Monday, when the cargo was finally examined and cleared, we had to repack everything. Fortunately, the forwarder had booked a vessel one week following the one that had departed from Mumbai.

Finally, the container was allowed entry to the port and the ship and was loaded on board at 2 am, and the vessel left the port at 4 am.

This has taken us 7 days from the time the container left the factory against perhaps 2 days usually.  At several points, we thought this was going to be mission impossible.  But in the end, a la Tom Cruise, we achieved the impossible, thanks to all those who contributed to the journey of our last container.

Challenges are part and parcel of work faced day in and day out by all, be it production staff, sub-vendors, logistics teams and export controls.  They have to do their job and, in the process, unexpected events do happen. What matters at the end is the achievement of the goal.

As the saying goes ‘Impossible is Nothing’ and ‘You never know what you can do until you try it’.