Icon Engineering Services Ltd. launched late in
1991 by Engr. Abu Mohammed Masud, without any
Financial investment and without any employee on
the payroll. It initiated with a very small geotechnical
laboratory setup in a rented garage. In early 1992,
Beximco Engineering Ltd awarded a small contract
of bored pile work for Rangunia– Hathazaree
electrical transmission line at Chittagong. That was
the beginning and later in the following years IES
did many small diameter bored pile construction
projects and completed successfully. Few of them
are mentioned here- UGC building, laundry building
of Hotel Sonergaon, Parishankhyan Bhaban at
Agargaon, Twin tower, Concord Grand at Shantinagar,
Concord Regency at Panthapath, Golf Heights at
Banani, ShundarbanTechnopark at Darussalam etc
and many other small building projects.
At the onset, IES faced a lot of troubles due to faulty workmanship of outsourced mechanical work that resulted in huge backlog and idle time. To overcome the crisis, IES set-up one mechanical workshop and started repair and maintenance of their own equipment and machines and IES got new momentum in site works. During this period we have constructed bored pile by conventional method for many prestigious projects having national importance. Among them bored pile for Hatubhanga bridge on Bangshi river at Mirzapore, Crown Cement Ltd at Mukterpur, Dhaka-Sylhet highway under Ircon International Ltd, Hz Shah Paran Bridge on Sylhet bipass road, Lafarge Surma Cement plant at Chattak under Lerson & Toubro Ltd, Kin Bridge Sylhet etc and many other projects are notable. During this period IES also started nondestructive pile testing work – PIT, Pile integrity test and PDA, High Strain Dynamic Testing for quality assurance test of pile foundation. Also, procured equipment for high tonnage pile load test work and conducted many pile load test having test load more than 500 ton.
In 2007, we had undertaken a large diameter bored
pile work for Arch bridge on Gulshan Lake between
Banani and Gulshan. Technical specification restricted
the rotary boring method to follow. IES have rented
one table drive rotary drilling rig for the work but
failed to accomplish drilling. As a result, engineers
and workers had been humiliated and insulted
by the client and consultant. IES took that as a
challenge and started brainstorming to develop a
machine to accomplish the job. Finally, collected old
components from Dholaykhal and assembled in their
own workshop to make a drilling machine and finally
succeeded and finished the piling work by newly
developed rotary boring machine. This is a milestone
development of IES which boosted engineers and
workers to go ahead.
Presently, Icon Engineering Services Ltd. has a
big fleet of construction and successfully used
in many prestigious projects of the country
like- Hatirjheel integrated development
project, Mirpur- airport road flyover, box girder
bridge on river Brahmaputra at Gaffargaon,
Y-bridge on river Titas at Bancharampur,
bridges on Mahananda at Chapai, Gangachara
bridge on river Teesta in Rangpur etc.
Another new division started on by procuring
new diesel hammers and pile drivers to
undertake many projects. Such as the 22,000
Flat construction project of RAJUK. IES procured
new diesel hammers from Delmag, and now,
have a fleet of diesel hammers ranging from D22
to D46 with pile drivers and are at the top of the
list of contractors having the highest number
and heaviest diesel hammers and pile drivers.
During this time IES have widened and
introduced High Strain Dynamic Pile Test by
procuring two sets of Pile Driving Analyzers
and Pile Integrity Testers from Pile Dynamics
Inc, USA and engineers and technicians
obtained certification from overseas training
and proficiency test from PDCA & PDI.
IES procured 2500 ton and 1500 ton test
setups and expanded their ability to conduct
static pile load test up to 2500 ton. IES also
procured half dozen vibrating wire load cells,
displacement transducers, 16 channel data
logger, readout unit for instrumentation of
static pile load test. This is a new horizon
and IES became the only service provider for
instrumented pile load test.
Since inception, IES always looked forward
with a vision to utilize modern machinery
and practices essential for geotechnical
engineering; and develop human resources
on par with the international geotechnical
sector. All their focuses are being collectively
directed to become a leader of this nation’s
geotechnical service sector. This has already
been achieved and IES has become the only
piling and testing contractor in the country,
who have introduced: Hydraulic drilling rig
for bored cast-in-situ pile; fleet of new diesel
hammers; CFA piling; performing static axial
load tests using the most sophisticated
and precise instruments displacement
transducers and load cell; and introducing
dynamic testing of piles.
IES have also taken initiatives to modernize
the nation’s geotechnical investigation sector.
At present, IES is the only geotechnical firm to
implement the usage of an auto-trip hammer
to carry out standard penetration test (SPT)
and has developed double tube thin walled
vacuum sampler for collection of undisturbed
soil samples. In addition, the entire operation
is digitally recorded and submitted to our
clients. In the process, the quality assurance is
also guaranteed. Furthermore, it is also in our
intention to introduce internationally accepted
CPT; and seismic survey to clearly map out
geotechnical features of a particular location.
Icon Engineering Services Ltd. has been
established as a proprietorship concern and
later incorporated as a limited company and
registered in 2015.