Construction Wales Innovation Index

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WELCOME UNCOVERING CONSTRUCTION

CONTENTS 6. BUTTERFLY EFFECT 8. FINDING THE FUTURE 16. SEEKING SOLUTIONS 20. FOLLOW THE LEAD 24. FIT FOR THE FUTURE 26. TEAM PLAYERS 34. MADE OF STEEL 42. MAKING WAVES 44. RAISING THE BAR 46. FLYING HIGH 50. LOOKING AHEAD

Welcome to our report, published as part of the Construction Wales Innovation Index campaign.

Construction Wales Innovation Index is a new initiative in association with Construction Futures Wales to support and celebrate some of Wales’ most innovative businesses in the construction sector.

Innovation drives our economy forwards, boosting productivity and opening new markets, which is why businesses put such emphasis on it. According to a report on innovation from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, NESTA, UK businesses invested £124bn in the intangible assets associated with innovation and R&D. This compares to the £93bn spent on tangible assets such as buildings, machines and vehicles.

But, a House of Commons briefing paper published in December Tackling the Undersupply of Housing in England, says the construction industry in the whole UK has been slow to adopt technological and other innovations which are frequently used by house building industries in other countries. These include increased use of data and data management in design and planning and the use of mass produced modular components. The paper points out that whereas productivity in the whole economy, increased by 22.7% between 1998 and 2015, labour productivity in the construction sector grew by just 0.4%.

This is particularly important for Wales. The Construction Industry Training Board, CITB, forecasts growth across the Welsh construction sector is set to outstrip the rest of the UK throughout this year and beyond. The development of The Construction Wales Innovation Centre together with the Welsh Government’s Innovative Housing Programme provide just two examples of major investment in construction innovation.

It is good news that companies in the sector throughout Wales are taking up the challenges of innovation, not only embracing some of the programmes launched by the government and Construction Futures Wales but also by introducing and developing their own initiatives.

In this publication we list a range of innovative construction companies and spotlight and profile some of these and the work they are engaged in. We also interview some of the leading figures involved in innovation in construction in Wales examining the advances that have been made and the challenges that remain.

We hope you will be as encouraged and inspired as we have by some of the facts and stories we have uncovered.

Peter Jackson, BQ Editor

BE Group, the UK’s market leading business improvement specialists. www.be-group.co.uk

BE Group, Spectrum 6, Spectrum Business Park, Seaham, SR7 7TT. www.bqlive.co.uk and www.innovation100cw.co.uk. As a dedicated supporter of entrepreneurship and business growth, BE Group is making a tangible contribution to local, regional and national economic growth across the UK. The Innovation Construction Wales Index is a major initiative to identify some of Wales’ most innovative companies across the construction and built environment sector, looking particularly at the supply chain to highlight the depth of the sector and its relevance to the future economic prosperity of the sector in Wales. All contents copyright © 2019. All rights reserved. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility can be accepted for inaccuracies, howsoever caused. No liability can be accepted for illustrations, photographs, artwork or advertising materials while in transmission or with the publisher or their agents. All content in this Innovation report should be regarded as advertorial. All information is correct at time of going to print, Innovation Construction Wales Index March 2019.

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Feeding the future All the companies featured in the Innovation Index are remarkable, but ten of them merit particular mention Our judges identified no fewer than 33 companies which qualify for inclusion in the Innovation Index.

Each one of these, in its own way, demonstrates a commitment to improvement through change and to finding newer and better ways of doing things in the construction sector.

Out of the 33, our judges were able to choose Ten of the Best. These were the businesses that really stand out as exemplars and pace-setters in innovation. In many cases, what they do not only sets new standards for the construction sector, not just in Wales, or even the UK, but which is having an impact all around the world.

Five of these businesses are showcased in depth in the pages of this publication.

Concrete Canvas, for example, was founded barely 15 years ago but now has offices around the world and its products are used in every continent.

We also spotlight: Seven Oaks Modular; Active Building Centre; GOS Tool and Engineering; and Zip Clip.

But, we must not neglect to mention the others in the Top Ten: F1 Modular; Williams Homes (Bala); MWT Civil Engineering; Remote Datum; and Tremorfa.

Powys-based F1 Modular manufactures off-site modular buildings for affordable housing, extra care accommodation, school classrooms, hotels and retail units. Operating

from an 80,000sq ft factory on an eight-acre site, it offers a full turn-key solution undertaking detailed design, manufacturing drawings, fabrication and construction in its factory, transportation, installation/cranage and full-commissioning works.

Ashley House plc is F1M’s parent company and is a housing and health property partner working with providers and commissioners in the public, private and community sectors. Ashley House has more than 25 years’ experience providing innovative approaches in the resourcing, funding, design and development of social and community health care and supported living environments. Ashley House is listed on both AIM and the Social Stock Exchange segment of NEX Exchange.

A particular area of expertise for F1M is the provision of affordable housing to the public sector through agreements with local authorities and registered providers to help meet housing shortages. Recent housing contracts include a 40-apartment extra care facility for a housing association, affordable housing for a local authority and bungalows for a housing association.

Williams Homes (Bala) is a family business based in Bala, Gwynedd. It produces low carbon building solutions, windows, external doors and timber frames. It has a wide customer base, from one-off self-build customers to multi-national companies such

as Travis Perkins and Huws Gray. It also supplies The National Trust and Cadw.

Colwyn Bay-based MWT Civil Engineering has 25 years of experience in the industry and has worked on various engineering projects across North Wales. Its work includes civil engineering projects from concrete repairs to constructing highways and customers include domestic clients, large businesses and local authorities.

Remote Datum, based in Rhos-on-Sea, supplies and installs remote measuring equipment for construction and related industries. It uses GPRS technology to provide a data acquisition and transmission service. Data is transmitted to its web bureau where the data can be viewed graphically or downloaded as a CSV Excel file. The amount of data collected can be preset from a reading every second to every couple of days, dependent on the requirements.

Established more than 33 years ago, Tremorfa Electrical Services now employs more than 120 people across the UK and undertakes all aspects of engineering design, installation and maintenance for a wide range of clients.

These are all companies that stand out from an already distinguished crowd of true innovators and they are – literally – helping to build the Wales of the future.

We salute them. n

Active Building Centre / SPECIFIC

M.W.T. Civil Engineering Ltd

www.specific.eu.com

www.mwtcivilengineeringltd.co.uk

GOS Tool & Engineering Services Ltd

www.remotedatum.co.uk

www.gosengineering.co.uk

Zip Clip www.zip-clip.com

Concrete Canvas

F1 Modular

www.concretecanvas.com

www.f1modular.co.uk

Seven Oaks Modular

Williams Homes ( BALA ) lTD

www.somodular.co.uk

www.williams-homes.co.uk

Remote Datum Tremorfa

www.tremorfa.com

ONES TO WATCH Down to Earth

www.downtoearthproject.org.uk

Green Edge Applications www.greenedgeapps.co.uk

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Butterfly effect

Construction is a key industry for Wales but it fails to live up to its true potential because of a failure to innovate, argues Professor Brian Morgan

T

alking about innovation is one thing – a lot of people do - but defining what’s meant by the word is more difficult.

As Brian Morgan, professor of entrepreneurship at Cardiff Metropolitan University, says: “Innovation means different things to different people.’’

He’s particularly interested in the way in which it can be applied to the construction

sector, where it comes in a number of different forms.

“You have product innovation, process innovation, organisational innovation and innovation in the marketing. So innovation is a broad concept. One useful definition of innovation is the successful introduction of new technologies and procedures into construction. Essentially, that definition

stands and that’s what we have to look at.’’

It matters, because he believes innovation is critically important to the construction sector, particularly in Wales, where cost and competitive pressures are driving down margins and where changes in technology are adding more cost.

“But construction companies are just treating the whole thing as business as usual, they say, we will just keep on doing what we are doing,’’ says Prof Morgan. “But the trouble is, because innovation is happening elsewhere in the industry, if you don’t respond, then you’re going to become uncompetitive, so the do-nothing option is not an option for the construction industry in Wales because of the way things are changing. Innovation in new technology and new procedures is the only way you’re going to be able to address these cost pressures.’’

The problem, as he sees it, is particularly acute in the Welsh construction sector, which as a proportion of GDP is as big as England’s.

But, whereas in England the multiplier effect of construction and infrastructure spending is nearly three, so that every £1 of spending injects £3 into the wider economy through its impact on the supply chain, consumer demand and other factors, in Wales the multiplier is just 1.8.

Prof Morgan believes the reason behind this is failure to innovate.

“Companies in Wales have not been innovative enough and they are not linked into other companies in Wales that will allow these multiplier effects to be duly enjoyed in Wales.

So, for example, at the moment, there is a big student housing development going up around Cardiff. Where are the bathrooms coming from for those blocks? Where are the kitchens coming? They are all coming as pods and they aren’t coming from Wales. So all of that income and resource goes out of the economy and we end up with a multiplier of 1.8 rather than three.’’

Lack of innovation in construction contributes to other problems, not least of which is a housing shortage.

“There is a housing crisis with a huge lack of availability of housing in Wales,’’ says Prof Morgan. “Just the housing expansion in the pipeline on its own will take up a lot of the current resource and a lot of the current labour. In about five years’ time, if we go

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on doing things the way we have been doing them, there will be a massive skills shortage and a massive labour shortage.’’

He adds: “Housing is absolutely right for innovation. If somebody had been on Mars for the past 50 years and can came back to the UK, Wales in particular, they’d think: my God how things have changed, it’s amazing. But one thing that hasn’t changed - if you went on a construction site for houses they’d think: that’s exactly as they did it 50 years ago. it’s still bricks and mortar and very slow on site and lots of waste. Everybody has been saying saying we have to have modern methods of construction and off-site manufacturing and the sector is absolutely crying out for those processes to be introduced in Wales.’’

He cites a failure to adopt the latest environmental methods in housebuilding.

“There’s scope for green and energy-saving innovation and that’s vitally important. You don’t have to be a climate change activist to think that if you could get a house that was energy efficient, only in the sense that it was draught proofed and used up-to-date materials so that insulation was good, then people would really want to buy it. But unfortunately all the methods of construction don’t give you that.

You need off-site manufacturing of panels to which are completely draft proofed and completely insulated, to give you the energy efficient home that everybody is looking for.’’

To achieve this means getting the big construction companies on side, probably with government encouragement, or, as Prof Morgan describes it, “a carrot and stick approach’.

But, housebuilding in the UK wasn’t always left only to the big companies. A major reason behind our national failure to build enough homes has been the decline in the numbers of small and medium sized builders, many of whom were wiped out by the 2008 financial crash. When the UK was last building 240,000 homes a year in the mid-1980s about two thirds were supplied by these and they developed plots quickly to aid cash flow.

But, in the post-crash credit crunch, banks and traditional lenders withdraw support from

“

independent builders and many went out of business. The numbers of small housebuilders – defined as those building fewer than 100 homes a year - registered with the National House Building Council, halved between 2007 and 2014, to fewer than 3,000 – down from a peak of 12,000 in the late 1980s. These small builders built just under 20,000 homes in 2013, compared with an annual figure of almost 51,000 a decade earlier.

Because of the housing shortage, the government is keen for SME builders to reenter the market and has introduced measures to encourage them to do so. Prof Morgan believes they can be a useful ally in the fight for innovation.

“At Cardiff Met, we have been looking at the role of the small builder in driving this off-site manufacturing,’’ he says. “The small builder is quite innovative and quite flexible. If one of them is invited to build five or six houses with some social housing on a plot of land by the local authority with a stipulation that they have to be off-site manufactured and other types of criteria, they’re flexible to do that. But, if you say that to the big boys, they’ll say they’ll go somewhere else. So there is a big role for the small family builder here and that is something we would like to encourage. The financial crisis of 2008 meant the smaller companies went to the wall because there was such a lag in them getting paid and there is a huge gap in the market now and we have to encourage the ones that are left to get involved in this new methods of working.’’

For these new methods of working to be adopted, he believes the industry should be looking beyond Wales – and beyond the UK. “Other countries are doing it,’’ he says.

“Off-site manufacture is the way Sweden and Germany have been going for years.

We should be sending people to places like Germany and Sweden to see what they are doing, because it’s no accident that most of those bathrooms that are being put in those places down the road are coming from Germany. Who knows, Brexit might give as the sharp shock that we need.’’ n

Innovation in new technology and new procedures is the only way you’re going to be able to address these cost pressures.

Leading the way in construction Cardiff Met has long been pushing the construction innovation agenda.

Construction Futures Wales, the joint investment strategy for the industry in Wales, fully-funded by the Welsh Government and CITB [Construction Industry Training Board}, was designed to support the growth of Welsh construction businesses. Cardiff Met has been running the Construction Futures Wales (CFW) Leadership Programme for the past three years, in which time some 250 companies have been through the programme.

The CFW Leadership Programme runs over approximately ten months with six two-day workshops covering topics including: • Leadership, Team, Mentoring and Coaching; • Innovation & Principles of Lean Construction; • Finance; • Principles of Building Information Modelling (BIM); • Sustainable Construction; • Growing your business; developing a Strategic Growth Plan (SGP) for your business.

During their coursework students worked closely with construction companies.

Prof Morgan says: “The programme is very much focused on innovation, with the companies really enjoying talking about what we mean by innovation.

We have two or three days very much focused on the opportunities of having off-site manufacturing, modern methods of construction and a continuous investment in skills, and we try to get that message across.’’

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Finding the future Concrete Canvas was born in a university environment in London, found a home in Wales and is now selling its pioneering products all over the world, as Peter Jackson finds talking to Will Crawford

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C

oncrete Canvas, based in South Wales, was founded by engineers Will Crawford and Peter Brewin.

The business makes a building material that combines the flexibility and portability of fabric with the toughness of concrete and is widely used in civil engineering.

The company now employs about 50 people and has offices in Belgium, Italy, Australia, South Africa, Malaysia and Dubai. Its sales grew by 30% last year and its products have been sold in more than 80 countries around the world.

But it all began as a project for two university students.

Crawford and Brewin met while studying on a combined postgraduate course at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, where, to help fund themselves through their degree course they entered several design and business plan competitions.

In 2004, one of these was run by the British Cement Association, which called upon students to devise new ways of using concrete and the pair developed a concept for creating rapidly deployable shelters for humanitarian disaster relief.

Their idea was an inflatable formwork shelter with a cement filled geotextile lining to be delivered to a site, folded in a crate. The shelter would be deployed to provide temporary accommodation in disaster relief situations.

The pair took the competition money and raised more funding to develop the technology from a combination of prize money from other design and business plan competitions, including the Saatchi & Saatchi Award for World Changing Ideas, equity investors and government grant funding. They also secured a development grant and set up in an industrial unit to turn their 1/8 scale prototype into a working product.

The pair are grateful for the opportunity they were given as students.

Crawford says: “The course where we met and had the creative space to develop the idea is pretty unusual within UK academia as a postgraduate course for people from a technical background to spend two years after they have done their first degree applying the theoretical knowledge from their masters in a more pragmatic and creative way. That was a really special opportunity and it was that that gave as the opportunity to develop

the material, the first version of the concrete canvas material and early scale prototypes of the shelters.’’

In 2005, Concrete Canvas was incorporated to begin commercial development of the shelter concept and in August 2007 the business relocated to its current HQ and factory in Pontypridd, just outside Cardiff.

In 2009 they began commercial volume production of concrete canvas and it soon became clear that there were many other applications for the concrete material and now the concrete shelters only account for about 1% of sales.

“The original company was set up to develop inflatable concrete buildings for disaster relief and we still manufacture and sell those but it’s a very small part of the business,’’ says Crawford. “I think it’s important, when you are in the start-up phase, to remain flexible and adaptable and that was really what allowed us to transition and change the focus from the shelters onto the material technology, the concrete canvas which now lies at the heart of driving the growth of the business.’’

In 2012, Concrete Canvas signed its first licensing agreement with a large US corporation and set up the first overseas production plant in South Carolina.

The product concrete canvas is part of a revolutionary new class of construction materials called geosynthetic cementitious composite mats (GCCMs), which can be used as an alternative to conventional concrete.

It’s a flexible, concrete filled geotextile that hardens on hydration to form a thin, durable, waterproof and low-carbon concrete layer.

The company describes it as ‘concrete on a roll’.

Concrete canvas (CC) now has a wide range of applications and markets. It’s used for a wide range of erosion control applications, allowing concrete construction with minimal plant and specialist training and is typically ten-times faster to install than conventional solutions.

CC consists of a three-dimensional fibre matrix containing a specially formulated dry concrete mix. A PVC backing on one surface of the CC ensures the material is completely water proof. CC can be hydrated by spraying or full immersion in fresh or salt water. Once set, the fibres reinforce the concrete to provide a thin, durable, water proof and low-carbon concrete

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layer. The fibre reinforcement prevents cracking, absorbs energy from impact and provides a stable failure mode.

The product is now in demand all around the world.

“We put a huge amount of focus on, and we are very proud of, our track record in exports and 80% to 85% of our turnover in any one year comes from export orders and over our history we have sold to about 80 countries, so it is a pretty broad spread,’’ says Crawford. “Sales to Europe are important, but they are only about 10% of our turnover. Last year biggest markets outside of Europe were Japan, the Far East, South Africa, Chile, so we are not reliant on the European or developed economies. The products are used across a wide range of economies and geographies and climates.’’

The company’s success has been widely recognised and accolades include a Queen’s Award for Enterprise and silver medals from the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2014, Concrete Canvas was named the fastest growing manufacturer in the UK in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100. In 2015, Concrete Canvas was recognised in the national awards of Wales, winning one of just nine St David Awards, which ‘recognise and celebrate the exceptional achievements of people from all walks of life in Wales and abroad’.

Another product, CC Hydro, is the world’s first all-in-one armoured impermeable liner for a wide range of containment applications, such as bund lining, lagoon lining, concrete remediation and tank base lining. The product was specifically developed for applications within the Petrochemical and Oil & Gas industries. CC and CC Hydro are currently used by seven out of the top 10 oil & gas operators around the world for a wide range of containment and erosion control applications.

CC has been used in the rail sector since 2009 and is used for time-critical track-side work, as it can be laid at a rate of 200sqm an hour, reducing line possession and improving safety.

CC is also being used in the civil engineering

“

sector as a cost-effective alternative to conventional concrete for a wide range of road-side projects including channel and ditch lining for water management and weed suppression. The speed of installation minimises traffic disruption, reduces the length of lane possession, and mitigates risks associated with roadside work.

In the mining sector, CC is being used extensively on large-scale mining projects around the world with customers in South Africa, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Russia, Australia and the UK. It has been installed in mining locations with sub-zero temperatures such as northern British Columbia in Canada and at 4000m altitude in the Chilean Andes.

The product has also has been used as an alternative to traditional concreting methods to reline existing concrete infrastructure in fisheries, canals or irrigation ditches on remote sites around the world, including South Africa, Ecuador, Malaysia and New Caledonia.

CC and CC Hydro are increasingly being used by utilities in the power, water, gas, landfill and hydro-electric industries both for the installation of new works and remediation of existing infrastructure.

CC has also been used in the defence sector since 2007 for a range of reinforcement, protection and erosion control applications.

Finally, Concrete Canvas has been used by a range of designers, architects and artists, in applications from furniture to conceptual fitness apparatus and from sculptures to art installations.

All these products and their varied applications are testimony to Concrete Canvas’s emphasis on innovation.

“Innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Concrete Canvas,’’ says Crawford.

“The company was set up by myself and Peter as a spin out from Imperial College with an idea that we had at university and we spent the first four years developing the material technology and then the production line that we developed to make the material. No production equipment exists other than the machines that we developed. So there was a

Part of the move to Pontyclun is to enable renewed focus on our R&D and the ability to develop and launch new products and new technologies.

huge amount of effort in the early years on the material and that production process.

“We understand the importance of innovation and of course we protect the products that we make through a broad family of patents on a global basis. We invest about 20% of our overhead back into R&D. We have a team of cross disciplinary researchers with a range of backgrounds, from chemists to material scientists and chemical engineers in order to stay ahead of the game.

They are always looking at improvements to existing technology and also at other material technologies that we can use in the future.’’

The determination to continue to expand R&D partly lies behind the company’s plans to move to larger premises.

Crawford explains: “We are just about to go through a really exciting phase. In June we are going to be relocating to a much larger production facility. We are currently based on the Treforest industrial estate where we have been for 10 years. We have expanded on the existing site as much as we can and in March 2018 we purchased 86,000 ft.² premises six miles down the road in Pontyclun. We are currently preparing for that move. We will move the entirety of the production and office staff over there including the research and

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development functions and laboratories, which is a significant part of what we do. Part of the move to Pontyclun is to enable renewed focus on our R&D and the ability to develop and launch new products and new technologies.’’

As he and Brewin met in London, how come they ended up in Wales? Are they Welsh?

He laughs: “I was born in Hong Kong, moved to Fiji, Iraq, Taiwan and Singapore and then to England, so, no, I can’t say I’m Welsh, but I have lived in Wales now for longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere else and I’m married and have children who were born here.

“After graduating, we needed to locate ourselves somewhere in the UK and we weren’t

really tied to anywhere. We had studied in London which obviously isn’t a good place to set up a manufacturing business and we looked at options from the tip of Cornwall to Scotland. Wales provided a good level of government funding support while still allowing us a good access to London and Bristol and the M4 corridor and good transportation links.

It’s also a wonderful part of the world.’’

So, no regrets then?

“Genuinely it has been fantastic. From a commercial sense, it has provided a location with relatively low overheads and we’ve had fantastic support from the Welsh government and that has been all the way through the

business, from when we moved here with grant funding support and advice in the early days through to now, giving us support on the export side through trade missions. Aside from that, it’s also a really nice place to live and to work and to bring up a family.’’

And his reaction to being recognised by Innovation Construction Wales?

“We are delighted with our nomination to the innovation index, it is a recognition of all our hard work that everyone at Concrete Canvas has put in over the years and it’s a reflection of what the company has achieved and also, I hope, where the company is going in the future.’’ n

Channel lining in Buzy

Drain lining in Vicuña

In April 2015, concrete canvas (CC) was used to line a channel located next to a railway line in the 64th Arrondissement, Buzy, France, at the southern end of the Belair Tunnel. The installation was conducted as a trial for SNCF, the French National Rail Authority, to determine whether it would be suitable for channel lining and other erosion control applications within their network. The site had some major access issues, and conventional concrete methods would have required a temporary access road, which would be costly and timeconsuming. The installation was carried out by BTPS and supervised by French CC distributor, Point P Travaux Publics.

The channel had to be prepared prior to installation as heavy rainfall had saturated the soil, which would have prevented the use of conventional concrete. However, CC’s properties allow for installation even in wet conditions. The material was mounted onto a spreader beam and unrolled down the length of the channel in two layers, with an overlap. The material under the overlap was hydrated using a bowser before being sealed with adhesive sealant and jointed with screws. The material was then hydrated, with a second hydration cycle completed an hour later due to the high temperatures.

In total, 250 m2 of CC8 were installed in three and a half hours by five people. SNCF were pleased with the speed and ease of installation and will continue to monitor the channel to assess its performance as a standard erosion control product across their extensive rail network.

In May 2016, Concrete Canvas (CC) was used to line a drainage channel at Vicuña, IV region, Chile. The objective was to stop water infiltration in an irrigation channel and to improve the local water management system.

The option of using reinforced concrete was rejected due to the cost and the time it would take to construct the channel.

Temperatures during the daytime were up to and in excess of 30ºC, the channel had to irrigate the fields on Sundays, so a solution was sought that could allow them to do so, otherwise the crops would dry-out.

The works were carried out by Agrotek Spa for the Peralillo Agricultural community, with consultation from Comision Nacional de Riego.

Vegetation, trees, and rocks were removed, excavated and levelled with a mini excavator, the profile of the channel was formed by compacting the earth with the use of a wooden mould.

The concrete canvas was supplied on bulk rolls and then mounted onto a spreader beam frame and cut to the exact length required using knives, eliminating waste and accommodating any variations in the channel profile. CC’s main advantages over conventional concrete are speed and ease of installation, cost, durability and environmental friendliness.

Overlapped in the direction of water flow, adjacent layers were screwed together. The outside edges of the CC layers were captured in a backfilled anchor trench after being pinned to the ground using steel ground pegs. Hydration was completed via a roadside water tank and motor pumps.

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Showcasing Wales most innovative construction businesses

Working together to make the world a safer, greener environment!

A&D Environmental Services Ltd was founded in 2008 by Directors - Tony Simpson and Dean Holmes - using their knowledge and experience gained in asbestos removal and the thermal insulation business over many years.

The Company has strategically grown in a sustainable manner and now employs more than 30 persons and operates out of offices in Flint and Wrexham, with a satellite base in Llandudno which effectively covers the North Wales region and beyond.

The business leadership ethic remains the same – to provide a reliable service with safety, quality, value, integrity and continuous improvement as the cornerstones. The company commits significant resources to ensure that these ethics are achieved and reliably maintained.

Its employees are crucial to the on-going success of the business and the company seeks to retain, train and develop their employees skills and competency to reflect the needs of the business, our Clients and the legislative framework within which we operate.

The management team have, with the support of Construction Future Wales, embarked on Leadership Training at NVQ level 4 or above and this has had a noticeable improvement in effective communication and teamworking.

A&D Environmental Services Ltd are committed to working in a positive manner with all our stakeholders and respect the interests which they may have in our undertakings. The Company’s client base includes Local Authorities, NHS Trusts, Universities, Food and Chemical Manufacturers, Building Contractors, Housing Associations, Landowners and home-owners.

With plans for UK-wide expansion, AB Glass Doors and Windows Ltd and its AB Access Control Division currently provide an innovative one-stop solution for the construction sector in UK. Since 1991, AB Glass has been serving the construction, architectural and local building industries with the highest level of environmentally conscious doors, windows and facades. Today, the company is one of the most successful manufacturers and installers of sophisticated curtain walling, structural glass assemblies, commercial and domestic aluminium windows and doors, and other related products and services.

AB Access Control is an ADSA approved installer accredited to BSEN16005, working for the domestic and commercial sectors. They offer a full technical sale, installation and follow up service for all their clients. AB Access specialises in the design, installation and maintenance of access control, door entry/intercom, automated gates/ barriers, PA and intruder alarm systems.

The nature of the company’s activities places emphasis upon the experience and professionalism of its personnel, and the quality and reliability of its products and services.

The company has recently been approved for the manufacture, supply and installation of Smoke Ventilation systems to BSEN12101-2 this is a hot topic with regard to smoke ventilation in buildings that conform to current building regulations. All smoke vents are manufactured and fully tested in their own manufacturing facility. Every smoke vent supplied, either supply only or supply and installation, is provided with a DOP (Declaration of Performance).

www.ad-asbestosremoval.co.uk sales@adenv.co.uk 01352 734 498

www.abforglass.co.uk info@ab.glass 01792 584 440

Established in 1968, Griffiths is a Welsh regional civil engineering and construction contractor. Based in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, the company employs more than 850 people across Wales and the West of England and has its own plant fleet and surfacing division. As a major civil engineering contractor working out of regional centres, they construct new roads, bridges and railways as well as maintaining existing assets for both public and private clients.

Griffiths work across the following eight sectors: Highways and Bridges, Rail, Utilities and Energy, Surfacing, Integrated Transport, Urban Regeneration, Highways Maintenance and Water Management.

Their strategically located offices and depots give them the flexibility to respond swiftly to clients’ needs, including immediate response to critical or emergency situations.

In the past five decades, they have been involved in some of the most prestigious and important infrastructure projects throughout the region. Drawing on decades of experience to deliver successful, sustainable and often award-winning projects, their highly experienced teams deliver the best possible and most cost-effective solutions time after time.

Girffith’s people are their company.

The way in which they treat people – both employees and the communities in which they live and work – is a core value that has driven continued growth over the past five decades.

Their award-winning Sustainability Challenge commits us to leaving economic, environmental and social legacy benefits local to our projects.

In 2016, Griffiths was named National Responsible Business Champion by Parliament’s All Party Corporate Responsibility Group.

www.alungriffiths.co.uk enquiries@alungriffiths.co.uk 01873 857 211

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Carreg Construction is an awardwinning Pembrokeshire construction company. Since 2003, Carreg has focused on creating a bespoke building firm that combines traditional building and heritage skills with the latest modern construction technologies and materials to undertake the very highest quality building projects for their clients.

Today, Carreg are proud to be one of the most respected and successful building firms in West Wales. Their reputation for quality and reliability in construction, attention to detail, unrivalled project management and a commitment to customer service make up the cornerstones of their services.

Carreg have many repeat customers, who also recommend Carreg to their family and friends. What’s more, every worksite has a designated site manager – your first point of contact regarding your project and the person who will oversee all aspects of on-site activity.

www.carregconstruction.co.uk contact@carregconstruction.co.uk 01348 831 711

Concrete Canvas Ltd produces a revolutionary and innovative construction material called Concrete Canvas®, a Geosynthetic Cementitious Composite Mat (GCCM). It is a flexible, concrete filled geotextile that hardens on hydration to form a thin, durable, waterproof, and fire-resistant concrete layer. Essentially, it’s concrete on a roll.

Originally developed to construct the award-winning Concrete Canvas Shelters®, The speed and ease of which CC can be installed result in it being more cost-effective than conventional solutions. Up to 200m² of CC can be supplied on a pallet, replacing two 17-ton ready-mix lorries - significantly reducing logistics, environmental impact of construction work and reducing contractor burden of civil projects.

Recently CC Hydro™ - a Geosynthetic Cementitious Composite Barrier (GCCB) - has been launched, it is a new, revolutionary containment product, combining the company’s concrete impregnated fabric technology with a high impermeability, chemically resistant geomembrane backing. The hard armour concrete surface of CC Hydro™ effectively removes the need for concrete, soil or aggregate top cover, normally required with conventional liner systems. CC Hydro™ is available in 5mm and 8mm thicknesses for a wide range of containment applications.

All products are manufactured at the company’s headquarters, near Cardiff, from where it exports to over 80 countries. Concrete Canvas GCCM has gained market acceptance in the civil engineering sector as a cost-effective alternative to conventional concrete in a wide range of applications, from channel lining to slope protection. Customers include 7 of the 10 largest oil companies in the world and the British Armed Forces.

Down to Earth offers life-changing experiences to south Wales’ most vulnerable groups through the medium of creating spectacular buildings with natural and sustainable materials as well as sustainable land management.

In a nutshell, Down to Earth merge innovation in health care delivery with innovation in education delivery – the result is a transformative approach to how they work with people (particularly the most vulnerable/disadvantaged) and delivers community-wide change.

Down to Earth create spectacular buildings fit for future – buildings which tackle inequality and social exclusion through how they are built and how they impact people and the wider environment in their use.

By putting vulnerable communities at the very centre of building their own affordable/social housing, they deliver clinically-valid health care as well as tackling poverty through the medium of building houses fit for the future.

Their houses are built with natural, local materials and are “homes as power stations” – they generate more electricity than they consume. Down to Earth’s houses will enhance the life chances of communities through both their construction and occupancy by being fully natural, breatheable and non-toxic.

Down to Earth’s approach has been clinically proven to improve health in 3 separate clinical studies over the last 8 years (with the NHS and Swansea University). The most recent piece of research (by Professor Jason Davies SU/ ABMU) shows their approach is as effective as anti-depressants – and without the side effects. With a growing reputation and 12 year track record, Down to Earth is at the forefront of “social prescribing”.

www.concretecanvas.com info@concretecanvas.com +44 (0)345 680 1908 +44 (0)1443 84 2775

www.downtoearthproject.org.uk Twitter: @D2EProject 01792 232 439

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Showcasing Wales most innovative construction businesses

Drone Evolution helps to make people safer and organisations better. Using drone technology, they provide world-class aerial data to improve organisations’ ability to deliver for their clients.

Drone Evolution are focused on tethered drones. These drones can stay in the air for many hours (the drone is powered via the tether by a small ground station unit) rather than the 20-30 minutes flight times afforded by their free-flying cousins. This widens their commercial capability. It also makes them more secure as there is little risk of flyaway.

The company is developing its own tethered drones for use in security, construction, utilities and facilities management. Drones in development will increase flight time to days, weeks, potentially even months at a time.

This is one of a range of future developments planned.

As well as product development, they provide drone services such as aerial inspections, quantity surveying, thermal imaging and short-term security via a tethered drone.

The company can also set organisations up to become self-sufficient with an in-house drone team. They advise and consult on the drones required, source and lease the drones, provide training for the team, advise on the correct insurances and apply for the required approval from the Civil Aviation Authority.

Any way to reduce working at height is important for the construction industry.

With a background in facilities management, Drone Evolution’s team is uniquely placed to understand the challenges of modern construction and deliver unique solutions to the benefit of the industry, its employees and its clients and customers.

Established in August 1992, Edwards Diving Services was originally a diving company, but now is a multi-disciplined contractor covering marine and civil engineering offering a unique solution to any water-based challenge. Their one-acre base in Caerphilly, South Wales, comprises of their offices, stores and workshops including equipment and plant storage and maintenance areas, a fabrication bay and machining workshop.

Clients benefit from a broad range of skilled employees, including qualified dive supervisors and divers, confined space trained craftsmen and rescue trained personnel, civil engineers, fabricators, welders, marine engineers, boat handlers, marine biologist and environmental specialists. The company provides a diverse range of services for difficult access and hazardous environments such as commercial diving, confined space services, inspection and maintenance of culverts and bridges, ROV inspections, breathing apparatus, fabrication and welding and pollution control. With an extensive array of professional skills, industry knowledge and experience the company is a one-stop-shop for clients.

Innovation is at the very heart of the company and a team of engineers and skilled craftsmen work with their clients to resolve complex engineering problems. The company take a collaborative approach with clients and partners to fully appreciate the scope and sensitivity of the problem, enabling the team to design and develop a safe, sustainable and best value solution. Each job undertaken is unique and requires an innovative approach to problem solving.

EFT is a Welsh company, based in Swansea with a far-reaching influence across the UK and beyond. They are working with world renowned organisations to set standards for monitoring environmental conditions within buildings; with a focus on the health and well-being of the occupants.

As key legislation such as the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 is driving the importance of our long-term health, we have a collective responsibility to examine and where necessary improve environmental conditions within buildings. EFT’s consultancy services help to create healthier buildings, reducing the effects of Sick Building Syndrome and Industrial Asthma, to name but a few. These conditions affect the well-being of employees and have a hugely detrimental effect on business productivity.

EFT’s Design and Consultancy Services use technology and innovation, as well as traditional engineering, to make a measurable difference. Their efficiencies enhance well-being and productivity and contribute to sustainable growth.

As champions of improved environmental quality, EFT are the regional organisers of the Global Circular Economy Club representing South Wales. They engage with Leaders from the Public and Private Sectors to help change attitudes and to put Health, Environmental Quality and the Well-being of people at the heart of decision making, operations and values.

At EFT, they put in place what businesses need to perform, today and tomorrow.

www.dronevolution.co.uk toby.townrow@dronevolution.co.uk 02920 807 600/07966 665 660

www.edwardsdivingservices.co.uk info@edwardsdivingservices.co.uk 029 2086 2020

www.eftconsult.co.uk dave@eftconsult.co.uk 01792 277 165

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EvaBuild is your first-choice contractor for General Groundworks, Civil Engineering & Modular Groundworks.

EvaBuild are the first and last contractor on site. They are responsible for setting-out the site and installing all groundworks and infrastructure and towards the end of a contract they return to attractively landscape and complete the project to the highest specification.

EvaBuild are committed to exceptionally high standards of service, quality and safety, working both locally and across the UK. They value their staff, clients and suppliers with openness and honesty, and take pride in what they do for the local community and environment.

CIVIL ENGINEERING Their service and proven expertise means each project receives the highest standard whatever its size, complexity and requirements, whilst combining their expertise and forward-thinking approach has earned them a reputation for undertaking civil engineering work throughout the UK. MODULAR GROUNDWORKS In a fast-growing innovative modular industry with sustainable and efficient concepts, EvaBuild tailor a service that suits many applications on a temporary or permanent basis to provide an ideal solution.

GENERAL GROUNDWORKS We can cater for a variety of contracts ranging from £10k to £2m based on all aspects of site clearance, bulk excavation, concrete works, enabling works, foundations, deep drainage, service installation, road construction, road surfacing and paving works.”

www.evabuild.co.uk info@evabuild.co.uk 01686 623 809

F1 Modular Limited (“F1M”) is a leading manufacturer and innovator of high performance off-site fabricated modular buildings. The Company delivers high quality, energy efficient volumetric property solutions including housing, extra care accommodation, school classrooms, hotels and retail units, for the public and private sectors. A primary area of expertise is the provision of affordable housing to the public sector through agreements with Local Authorities and Registered Providers to help meet housing shortages.

Part of the Ashley House plc group, F1M employs more than 80 people and operates from an 80,000 square foot factory on an eight acre site in Newtown, Powys.

All modules are precision engineered using steel or timber frame and utilising fully insulated panels for the walls. This creates a highly efficient structure that reduces energy uses, running costs and the carbon footprint.

F1M has a trusted team of experts both in-house and with its external partners, working together to deliver bespoke and competitive built solutions. F1M offers a full turn-key solution undertaking detailed design, manufacturing drawings, fabrication and construction in its factory, transportation, installation / cranage and full-commissioning works.

Alternatively, the Company can supply modules to a customer’s development site or have units available for collection from the factory door.

F1M is a trusted brand within the Construction and more particularly the Modern Methods of Construction industry. F1M’s accreditations, including system approval from LABC, Premier Guarantee and NHBC / Steel Construction Institute provide added confidence to its customers that F1M solutions are provided to the highest industry standards. www.f1modular.co.uk 01686 611 130

GOS Tool & Engineering Services Ltd. is a privately owned and managed market leading engineering business based in Blaenavon on the eastern edge of the old South Wales Coalfield. The original business was established in 1966 as a contract machine shop supporting the traditional South Wales heavy industries.

Today the company employs 110 people with a turnover of over £14m.

The current major focus revolves around the rail sector where they are UK market leaders in the manufacture of Road Rail Vehicles (RRV’s). These are excavators converted to run on rail. They are also market leaders in Germany in Rail Trailers (The work trailers that are pulled by RRV’s) and Mobile Flash Butt Welders in the UK and Australia. (the machines that travel down track to weld railway lines together).

GOS Tool & Engineering Services Ltd strategy on rail vehicles revolves around 4 vehicles types, Wheeled Excavators, Tracked Excavators, Light Lorries (7.5 tonnes) and Heavy Lorries. They have recently won their first order for a 26 tonne lorry for Network Rail. All this equipment is used within “a possession” an area of railway line closed off and not open to live railway traffic.

They are now starting to work in an area called OTP (On Track Plant). This is a different standard and allows their equipment to work with trains and wagons on live lines. They are currently manufacturing 5 units to pull cables through The Channel Tunnel and this will open up new market areas for the company.

www.gosengineering.co.uk neil.gregory@gosengineering.co.uk 44-(0)1495 790230

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Seeking solutions Construction Futures Wales has been labouring to build innovation in the Welsh constructions sector, as Peter Jackson discovers talking to Paul Wintle

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nnovation in the Welsh construction industry has made great strides over the past five years and that has been in no small part thanks to Construction Futures Wales.

Jointly funded by the Welsh Government and CITB (Construction Industry Training Board), it grew out of Construct Wales, which was set up in 2007 in an attempt to get the industry to change and to innovate.

Paul Wintle, now programme manager for Construction Futures Wales, was with Construct Wales.

He says: “We decided to target the housing associations as at that time in Wales these were just starting up, coming on stream as one or two local authorities had offloaded their council stocks and we did manage to get in there. The old council direct labour organisations were not the most efficient, to say the least. So we could make an impact straightaway. Most of the stuff we were delivering through the program was something called the principles of lean construction, the lessons that came out of the automotive industry.’’

The success of this led to the formation of Construction Futures Wales in 2014, on the back of the 2012 McClelland report: Maximising the Impact of Welsh Procurement Policy, which emphasised the need for collaborative procurement.

Several new concepts, practices and methods were adapted and adopted to introduce innovation into Welsh construction.

“

“We operated on the principles of lean and true collaboration,’’ says Wintle. “This means sharing on the site. If you look at it in terms of tradesmen: a plasterer will come in first and then a painter, it’s about leaving something that the next person can get on with easily and introducing zoning areas. It’s not rocket science but very simple and powerful and it had quite a dramatic impact once we managed to get the flywheel going.’’

There was also the increasing importance of environmental and sustainable practices with an emphasis on recycling and the introduction of framework agreements. These set out the terms which will govern a series of contracts over a given period thus streamlining the procurement process. SEWSCAP 3, for example, is a four-year framework used by more than 20 Welsh councils and public bodies for schools and public building works, worth £1bn in total.

“It’s great once you’re in the framework, it’s not so great if you’re not,’’ says Wintle. “We have had to educate the industry about that.

I know of one company that had worked for a local authority for 30 years but they failed to get on the framework and so won’t pick up any work from them for the next four years.’’

Business Information Modelling, or BIM, is becoming the norm in major construction and infrastructure projects. As building projects have become ever more complicated, with developments in heating, safety, air conditioning, materials and IT, there has

It’s not rocket science but very simple and powerful and it had quite a dramatic impact once we managed to get the flywheel going.

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been a growing potential for high levels of error in designing and workflow of a project.

It has been calculated that the uncertainty around final cost can be so high that quantity surveyors often produce a 20% margin of error – unacceptable in any other field.

All this is changing with the introduction of BIM, an intelligent 3D model-based process that gives architecture, engineering, and construction professionals the insight and tools to more efficiently plan, design, construct, and manage buildings or infrastructure.

BIM is a way of working, rather than a physical object, a process for delivering and operating built assets using well-structured digital information that all the necessary parties access.

Construction Futures Wales supports businesses in the construction industry through providing company health checks which lead to one-to-one support and an analysis of business performance, networking and leadership and management training.

It also encourages Welsh businesses to seek supply chain solutions in Wales.

Wintle explains: “We have supported companies by doing a lot of sourcing work, putting some good suppliers in front of the big tier one companies for framework work.

Obviously the name of the game should be to get Welsh suppliers in. You cannot always be that parochial and the bigger companies come with the bulk of their supply chain already sorted, but our role was to get companies to innovate. We are there to get the Welsh suppliers tooled up to be able to share the work. We have become more competitive in terms of quality cost and delivery and a safer working environment and hopefully this will lead to new and repeat business.’’

He adds: “We went out to industry 15 months ago and met a group of companies in North Wales and a group of companies in South Wales and asked them for the things which were really important to them. What came back was that we had lots of good innovative companies in Wales but that we hide our light under a bushel and so, when people are bidding for work, they don’t realise that there’s somebody down the road who has got a solution for them. I went to see one company in North Wales and they said that they were tasked with building a school

Educate and inspire Paul Wintle graduated from University College Swansea in 1980 with a degree in Civil Engieering. He worked for 20 years in the private sector, working in opencast coal mining and later specialising in waste management.

“One of the coal sites I worked on is now a nature reserve,’’ he says.

He later joined the Welsh Development Agency, becoming a regional waste manager.

“I worked through the introduction of the landfill directive and I dealt with all kinds of business, everything from a small skip firm right the way through to 3M.’’ He went on to work on a supply chain clusters programme, dealing with OEMs and their suppliers’ “It was about trying to educate the suppliers about the needs of the OEMs which were very often driven by the needs of the end user,’’ he says.

Then in 2007, he helped set up Construct Wales, before Construction Futures Wales in 2014.

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and there was a specific biomass boiler to be installed. They ended up getting it from Newcastle. But, then they had problems commissioning it and the distance was a problem and the company found out that similar models were being manufactured a few miles down the road from them in North Wales. That flagged up then to a lot of other people the question: what else have we got in Wales? Have we got these solutions sitting here?’’

Preliminary contact with businesses is usually made through a questionnaire.

“We put together a four-minute questionnaire to see whether businesses met our criteria, because we didn’t want to work with small start-ups, we wanted them to have management systems, or a semblance of management systems in place that we could develop,’’ says Wintle.

“That was how we got companies into the process and how they started the customer

journey. Once through this four-minute questionnaire and if a business meets our criteria, then our consultant comes out and really tests the business. We score them and, where our scores are not so high, give recommendations and details of how we would support that business. Then we would either offer them the one-to-one support or the management and leadership course. And if we thought it was the right sort of thing, we would offer them both.’’

Led by Cardiff Metropolitan University, the Construction Futures Wales Leadership and Management programme is aimed at equipping managers with the skills to become proficient leaders.

The programme, delivered at venues throughout North and South Wales, offers a range of qualifications from Level 3 to Level 7. Achievement of a Level 7 qualification will also result in a Postgraduate Certificate in Leadership. All qualification levels are jointly

accredited by Cardiff Metropolitan University and the Chartered Management Institute.

The programme lasts for six months, divided into five two-day workshops. The first half of the programme is designed to develop a leadership style through a series of workshops and individual executive coaching. In the second half of the programme, a series of master classes are provided on innovation and new thinking on a variety of business themes.

However, the main objective of the programme is to get participants to develop a three-year growth strategy for their business.

The Construction Futures Wales programme is coming to an end but Wintle believes it has gone a long way towards changing the culture and mindset in construction in Wales and it has done so by working with the industry.

He says: “I get questioned by some people as to why we are doing these things. My response has been: because we listened to industry.’’ n

Building relationships in construction Residential housebuilder Waterstone Homes applied for Leadership & Management training through Construction Futures Wales in 2017.

Sales & marketing director Andrea Gardner was offered a place on the cohort, together with a company health check to identify areas for improvement in the business.

Bridgend-based Waterstone, one of Wales’ largest family builders and a member of the Jehu Group of Companies, builds homes across South and West Wales.

It offers buyers the opportunity to work with them to influence their home’s internal design and to be involved in the process of building.

Andrea was keen to ensure Waterstone Homes could leverage the support they needed to take the company forward.

She explains: “Some of our client’s requirements can take us into unfamiliar territory as a business and this presents a new set of challenges. We understand that every client is different, and we appreciate that further development of our own knowledge is sometimes required to ensure that we can meet the needs of all of our

customers in the future.”

She adds: “With decades of experience within the construction industry, we are always open to new and exciting innovation and challenges to grow as a business. We create a rewarding working environment for our staff and ensure our employees can develop by working collaboratively and investing in our people.

“The Leadership & Management programme through Construction Futures Wales offered a unique opportunity to gain these essential skills. I have encouraged additional staff in our business to enquire and see what support is available to them as the course was significantly beneficial to myself and the business.

“The programme directly reflected our business aspirations, it made sense to take advantage of the opportunity.”

“Whilst a little nervous, as I am a mature student hitting the half century - and it’s a long time since I focused on lectures! - I thought I would give it a go as leadership is such an interesting and valued area of any business. I am a believer that everything has to change and have had experience of working

under many different styles of leadership.

This provides members of our teams with the tools and knowledge they need to move the business forward.”

“I completed the Level 5-7 programme and gained a Level 7 qualification upon completion of the Strategic Growth Plan. It was a challenging course as I had a very busy work schedule to maintain during my studies, but the support and advice that was given made the organisation and delivery of my projects manageable. I was able to implement my learning in the workplace and make improvements to our working practices as a result. ” “Construction Futures Wales opened my mind and to be studying in Cardiff Metropolitan meant I was able to share my expertise with entrepreneurs in businesses and the university, who offered an incredible amount of collaborated support. I can recommend the leadership programme as it drew on data, facts and realism to the new era of the workplace for the future. People are changing, businesses are changing, and our customers change all the time. We must not stand still, it would be unforgiveable.”

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Follow the lead Active Building Centre - an initiative that will point the way for others to follow - is one of the projects highlighted by the Construction Innovation Wales judges

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uildings that more than pay their own way in terms of energy consumption are being pioneered in Wales with government and industry support Sustainability forms a key part of the innovation agenda for construction in Wales and here the Welsh Government has put its weight behind a new initiative.

The SPECIFIC Innovation and Knowledge Centre was set up in 2011, as an academic and industrial consortium led by Swansea University. Its strategic partners are Akzo Nobel, NSG Pilkington, Tata Steel and Cardiff University.

Its mission is to develop technology to enable buildings to generate, store and release their own solar energy for both heat and electricity.

It is funded by Innovate UK, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government.

Originally, SPECIFIC was set up with a fiveyear £20m commitment and a second phase of the project began in April 2016 with a further £26m of funding Following the success of its Active Classroom as a demonstrator, Innovate UK supported the construction of SPECIFIC’s Active Office, opened in June 2018, which accommodates 30 members of staff and can share solar energy with the neighbouring Active Classroom.

SPECIFIC takes the technologies from the lab to full scale demonstration on buildings and also specialises in connecting the technologies – its own and others - so that a building’s heat and electricity is managed by one system, integrated into the building and optimised for performance.

It works with industry partners to bring new technologies to market and to influence change in the construction industry.

Its overall aim is the decarbonisation of heat and power for the benefits of the occupiers and owners of the buildings, the environment, and for the energy infrastructure and economy.

It says that its vision is: “…to develop active buildings that can generate, store and release their own solar energy. We do this by developing technology, demonstrating the

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concept on full scale buildings, and bringing together partners who can work together to enable change in the built environment.’’

It has two flagship building demonstrators: the Active Classroom and Active Office, which are both designed to be energy positive, which means generating more than they use.

The Active Classroom at Swansea University generated about one and a half times the energy it used in its first year of operation.

The Active Office was opened last June.

The Active Classroom was named Project of the Year by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Wales. It took just eight months to build and uses a mix of technologies to create as much energy output as possible.

Jo Clarke, the architect of the Active Office for SPECIFIC, and now head of design for the Active Building Centre says: “We decided to build the active classroom in 2016 to showcase the Swansea International Festival that September.

“When I joined SPECIFIC in 2013 my role was to engage with the construction industry and I soon realised that unless we had a building we were not going to be able to do that. We could show some really nice examples of the research work, but I know from my practice that architects find it hard to visualise without a building and there was a need to de-risk some of the newer technology and, by putting them in our own demonstrator building, we could do that.

Some of it was quite experimental, with new products and new forms of construction.’’

The steel roofs have integrated photovoltaic cells connected to batteries with enough capacity to provide several days of power. The building also features steel cladding to capture solar heat energy, as well as an electrically heated floor coating. The Active Office has a smart Cisco platform and battery storage.

Professor David Worsley from Swansea University, who is leading the project, says: “The idea that a building has to consume power to survive is a bit 20th century. We can generate up to 50% more power from a building than it uses. If we make buildings that generate more power than they use, over time, the built environment can play its part in decarbonisation.’’

Recently, the technology was applied to housing, with a 16-home development in

“

Swansea University and the innovative companies working with it are world-leaders in clean energy. The UK government is backing the industries of the future that will deliver jobs and opportunities across Wales.

Neath, in partnership with social housing provider Pobl Group.

Swansea University is also leading Project SUNRISE, a £7m consortium of UK and Indian universities that aims to put solar energy and new technologies into five villages in India, allowing them to become energy selfsufficient.

The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund has also provided funding for a new Active Building Centre which was given the green light by The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond last year.

Chancellor Hammond, said: “Swansea University and the innovative companies working with it are world-leaders in clean

energy. The UK government is backing the industries of the future that will deliver jobs and opportunities across Wales. This £36m new funding will support exciting green technology that could cut energy bills, reduce carbon emissions and create better homes and workspaces.’’

“We are working on designs at the moment for an active building centre headquarters which will be located near the University,’’ says Clarke. “We’re developing a building and data pipeline. One of the main outputs from the active building centre will be data which we are capturing to hold in a national database and we are working with other university partners on that. We want to look at different

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building typologies, so we will have some housing projects, industrial, some educational building and some commercial buildings.’’

The centre will be funded by the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund as part of the Transforming Construction challenge which seeks to provide safer, healthier and more affordable buildings that use dramatically less energy to construct and operate.

The £36m award will be used to build and establish the Active Building Centre with the aim to break down the barriers that prevent mass uptake of active buildings, by working across the UK’s strengths in research and innovation to: • Deliver a national centre that will provide a living lab and host key staff tackling the challenges around sustainable technologies in Active Buildings; • Embed the use of innovative components into construction standard practice through working with the Core Innovation Hub that will also be formed as part of the Transforming Construction Challenge; • Draw on the significant technological advances and other insights from the wider research community, in addition undertake user-inspired research and innovation activities; • Work with commercial developers and the public sector to deliver a critical mass of Active Buildings in the UK; • Feed performance data, social and behavioural insight from Active Buildings back into the research and technology base to drive iterative research, innovation and product improvement; • Address the appropriate standards and regulatory barriers that inhibit the construction of Active Buildings.

Clarke says: “It is exciting for me, as an architect, to be working in this field of innovation. Designing the Active Building demonstrators has allowed me to combine my architectural experience with knowledge developed during my time at SPECIFIC and puts me in a unique position to be able to influence the construction industry to adopt the Active Building concept in their own building projects.”

She adds: “It’s quite early days for the centre, we’re just ramping up the number of people that we have got employed there.

The aim is to have a 65 people employed

who will be working with partners on projects such as the Neath development. We will have energy modellers, data analysts and people working on software development, so a wide range of activities but all ultimately focused around buildings.’’

UKRI chief executive Professor Sir Mark Walport said: “As we move towards a lowcarbon economy, we need to explore more efficient ways of generating, conserving and using power and energy.

“Active Buildings, which integrate solar generation and storage technologies for electricity and heat within their construction, can help to achieve this. The Active Building Centre will work to remove barriers to the large-scale adoption of active buildings on new developments throughout the country.

“The UK’s work in this field has been worldleading, and the centre is an important step towards realising the potential of low-carbon technologies.’’

Already the Active Building Centre is

attracting attention from the rest of the construction sector in Wales and beyond.

Clarke explains: “I do CPD [Continuing Professional Development] seminars with architects and I run some workshops for an organisation called the The Green Register, which brings together construction industry professionals who organise events throughout the year to try to educate people about what is going on in the green building world. I’m bringing a group to Swansea in May to have a look at our building. Also, we are asked to speak at number of conferences. We have a lot of main contractors and architects who visit and they find it exciting to see what is coming.

“Architects don’t really have time to research into new things, so going out to tell them about what we’re doing and knowledge sharing is a massive part of what we do. I am developing a code of practice for active buildings of the moment which should help people use this concept on their own building projects.’’ n

Taking centre stage Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund: The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund aims to bring together the UK’s world leading research with business to meet the major industrial and societal challenges of our time. The fund was created to provide funding and support to UK businesses and researchers, part of the government’s £4.7bn increase in research and development over the next four years. It was designed to ensure that research and innovation takes centre stage in the Government’s modern Industrial Strategy. It is run by UK Research and Innovation.

UK Research and Innovation is a new body which works in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. Operating across the whole of the UK with a combined budget of more than £6bn, UK Research and Innovation brings together the seven Research Councils, Innovate UK and a new organisation, Research England.

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Leigh Hughes of the Construction Industry Council for Wales welcomes the innovation that is coming to the sector, but warns that it has to be adopted across the industry

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eigh Hughes, of Bouygues UK, is the recently appointed leader of the Construction Industry Council for Wales and he welcomes the Construction Wales Innovation Index campaign.

He says: “It is so good that this Innovation Index is happening, because what we tend to find in Wales is that we are not very good at selling ourselves on what we are good at, and this campaign can raise awareness of what the industry is doing in Wales.’’

The Construction Industry Council, CIC, is the representative forum for the professional bodies, research organisations and specialist business associations in the construction industry.

In Hughes’ words: “The council advises on making sure that the industry is given the training and development skills and tools it needs to evolve with the innovation and technology that’s happening in the world at the moment. We advise the UK CITB [Construction Industry Training Board] on what is needed and what the current trends are. Our role is to ensure that employers in Wales and their suppliers are fit for the future and are delivering on what’s needed today.’’

He particularly welcomes Innovation 100’s ability to shine the spotlight on companies in the sector in Wales and what they are doing, as this is likely to foster collaboration, a key element of innovation.

“What we are very good at in Wales is being a collaborative compared to other parts of

the UK,’’ he says. “But we can only collaborate once we are aware of what other people can do. That should then provoke discussion and engagement and that would be good in terms of utilising products here in Wales and then raise awareness of it elsewhere in the UK.’’ This sharing and cross fertilisation will become increasingly important as new technologies drive the pace of innovation.

Hughes runs through some of the developments that are transforming – or will soon transform - the industry: off-site manufacturing; standardisation; sustainability, health and safety; BIM; data management, virtual reality and immersive learning. The list is a long one and he highlights a few.

Awareness of the environmental impact of the sector and mitigating its effects on the environment has become a major issue for

the sector, as it has for every other. So much so in construction that it is even looking at how to minimise its environmental impact 50 to 100 years ahead.

He says: “There’s a lot of innovation around the environment and the circular economy and also the reuse of materials. So, if you put a new building up you have to consider, when it is taken down: how much of it can be reused?

We are thinking of the environment when we build a new building before it’s even built. What is the impact going to be when we have to deconstruct it? How much can we reuse? It’s innovative that we are starting to think about knocking it down before we even build it.’’

Off-site manufacturing can help. This embraces not just the exterior of buildings but also elements within, such as kitchens and bathrooms.

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“They come on a pallet and you basically unfold them on location and then you just have to plug and plumb them into the electric and the pipework so there are many facets of a building that can be done,’’ he explains.

However, there are limitations. While much offsite manufacturing is done in the UK as overseas manufacturers tend not to meet UK standards, the production sites are often not local enough to satisfy procurements requirements for local sourcing. Furthermore, the capital investment required to set up manufacturing facilities means that there has to be the demand to make it commercially viable.

Another innovation which is becoming more mainstream in the Welsh construction industry is virtual reality.

“Previously it was predominant in the residential sector,’’ says Hughes. “Your purchasers can put a headset on and they could see their finished dwelling before it was built. That gives them the flexibility to choose such things as kitchen units or wallcoverings.

This has been extended to student accommodation, so parents can see where their children will be staying. It is now being used for new schools, so that the teachers can see what their classroom will look like before it has been built. It has really opened the eyes of end-users, so end-users can see a finished building before it has even started on site and that gives them confidence that what is being built will meet their needs. Now, virtual reality is becoming more and more widely used across all sectors rather than just the residential.’’

Robotics is also making an entrance into the industry and here the ability of robots to lift and lay heavy objects promises great advances in health and safety.

But, Hughes points out, that while all these innovations are on the horizon and are even being introduced, heralding great things for the future of the industry, there is one big challenge they present, particularly in Wales, and that is how to make them widely available.

He says: “Construction in Wales is predominantly an SME market. How do you give them access to all this innovation, because it can be quite expensive, so how do you make it affordable to the SME and the regional businesses, rather than just to the large multinational businesses? It’s important that everything we are looking at is accessible for all and not just for the few.’’

Another innovation challenge is Business Information Modelling, or BIM, an intelligent 3D model-based process to enable the more efficient planning, design, construction, and management of buildings or infrastructure.

“A lot of people are getting totally lost on BIM because it’s delivered in many different ways and at different levels and at the moment we are trying to get the UK to BIM level 2 while other parts of the world are already operating at levels 5 or 6,’’ says Hughes.

And, again, getting it’s important to ensure it’s rolled out to SMEs. “It’s coming into colleges, it’s coming into learning and it is happening on the sites, but again what you’re finding is that it is larger organisations that are embracing it and the challenge for the industry is: how do we get those tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers to get on board and start using it? BIM is becoming mandatory in some places but it stops at large contractors and doesn’t get down to the lower tiers Because the downside is that you have to buy a lot of equipment to be able to operate it and it requires an awful lot of training.

“So one thing government can do is provide some support for businesses, perhaps in terms of grant or subsidy in terms of upscaling and upgrading their equipment. A lot of focus goes on upscaling people, but with BIM you have to upgrade your equipment because the storage capacity of the necessary laptops is totally different to a standard laptop.’’

It’s also a question of educating the people who use buildings.

“The purpose of BIM is that it simplifies the running of the building in the operational phase because everything is online and visible to them and we have to train end-users to use the software properly. The industry might be designing in BIM and delivering in BIM, but as soon as they hand over the clients they have got to use it. An awful lot of time and effort is being used on developing it but end-users aren’t using it as it should be so that is an area that needs improving.’’

He points out that the digital revolution in its entirety will potentially have a huge effect on the construction sector which has to keep pace with it. Once more, he emphasises that smaller businesses must not be left behind.

“The key challenge with all of this is making it applicable to the whole supply chain, it must be all of industry and not just the big

companies,’’ he says.

Government can help to drive innovation in the sector by giving the confidence that comes through providing some certainty in the amount of work that’s coming down the line.

“Where government can help is in its commitment to projects being delivered,’’ he says. “You need live stuff to put innovation through and, until this work is happening, industry is reluctant to put in the investment, so what you need is a pipeline and a certainty of projects, because if you can see that longterm visibility of work, then industry will invest.

What slows down the speed at which it can move is pipeline and visibility.’’

As for the sector itself, Hughes just believes it needs a little courage.

“As with all forms of innovation, there’s always an element of caution until it becomes tried and tested a few times, so the first thing is, we have to be brave and start using it,’’ he says.

And he is optimistic that Wales will go for it.

He says: “It’s important that we embrace change as an industry because if we don’t we will die. We have a lot of young people coming through who want to embrace new technology, so there’s a growing group of disciples of change and it’s the younger people who are driving that, which is good, that’s what’s needed.’’ n

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Team players P

Innovation in the Welsh construction sector is well supported by a number of government programmes, as we report

ontypool based building manufacturer Brick Fabrication has doubled staff numbers and turnover following a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Cardiff University.

The company undertook a two-year project fully-funded by the Welsh Government, during which they established a KTP with the engineering department of Cardiff University.

The project involved designing special purpose brick cutting machinery, introducing lean manufacturing principles to the business, and connecting computer aided design to automated machines on the shop floor.

The KTP partnership provided the company with designs and prototypes for new brickcutting machinery and associated equipment together with bespoke software for improving manufacturing administration. The software provision improved the company’s machining and assembly activities and contributed to the implementation of lean, sustainable and continuous improvement.

Following the project’s success Brick Fabrication recruited its KTP associate, Sajith Soman, and started a recruitment drive which generated 31 new jobs at its Pontypool facility over three years.

Soman was responsible for leading the continuous design and product development improvement activities across the business.

He implemented lean manufacturing principles and innovative techniques throughout the production process, improving overall operational efficiency and performance.

Brick Fabrication more than doubled turnover with the KTP contributing £1.25m towards this, and the company reports that this business growth drove a new wave of product development and market research at the company.

John White Brick Fabrication director said: “Sajith has been an excellent addition to our team, and our KTPs with Cardiff University have been a major contributing factor to the business success we have experienced over the past few years.”

KTPs are just one aspect of the support which the Welsh Government offers to support innovation in the Welsh construction sector.

Its SMART Expertise operation delivers funding to universities to support commercially-led collaborations with businesses so long as projects have research,

development and innovation elements and significant private sector match-funding to ensure commercial outcomes.

This forms part of the Welsh Government’s SMART Suite of Programmes, which are integrated to deliver advice and financial support to Welsh businesses and universities to commercialise new products, processes and services.

SMART Innovation delivers general and specialist advice on R&D; subsidised technical consultancy; and certain innovative pilots such as its open innovation for anchor and larger companies, all by means of innovation specialists.

SMART Cymru delivers grant funding to businesses. Smaller funding, usually up to £25,000 and often associated with new technology for a particular applicant company, is delivered by means of an innovation voucher.

Larger projects - dealing with genuine, pioneer research and development - are supported

by SMART Cymru grants. These can be for any of the traditionally recognised stages of development including: • Technical & Commercial Feasibility • Industrial Research

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• Experimental Development • Exploitation The amount and intervention rates of support depend on the R&D stage and the size of the company.

SMART Innovation aims to increase the awareness and capacity for innovation in Welsh businesses and assists them to access financial support to improve their investment in Research, Development and Innovation. It’s delivered through businessfacing innovation specialists based in Welsh Government offices throughout Wales. It also provides manufacturing and design health checks for businesses, with up to three days of free consultancy support to businesses throughout Wales seeking to improve their competitiveness, with an additional five days for Industry 4.0-type projects. These are delivered by qualified

consultants with support tailored to meet the business needs. It’s focused around areas that improve competitiveness, such as increased productivity, quality and efficiency, and the development of new products, processes or services.

The SMART Innovation Open Innovation Programme promotes culture change within Welsh companies. It provides opportunities for collaboration between larger organisations and SMEs, to help them commercialise their products, processes and services.

Targeted at large companies, Open Innovation means working with external parties to achieve common challenges by allowing innovators to share risks and rewards. It aims to create new opportunities for faster delivery of new products, processes or services into the market place. The programme’s objective is to help participants to:

• Launch and resolve new technology challenges, promoted on Expertise Wales website; • Host interactive workshops to explore new opportunities; • Use online portals to encourage stakeholders to engage; • Develop collaborative links with market partners (suppliers and/or customers); • Assist SME partners to leverage financial support; • Develop new links with universities; • Mentor their SME partners; • Share specialist facilities and test environments with SME partners; • Share best practice A two-year pilot project with eight Welsh companies allowed them to develop and trial some of these new approaches.

One of these was Wales & West Utilities,

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whose innovation manager Lucy Mason said: “The open innovation pilot has given us valuable wider exposure to a diverse range of sectors including defence, pharmaceuticals and electronics. It has allowed us to connect with new industry and academic contacts to develop solutions and draw on skills and expertise to make sure we deliver what our customers want and need – affordable, reliable and green energy, today and in the future. ” Another element of SMART Innovation is the intellectual property support programme which is there to provide impartial information and guidance to businesses on patents, trade marks, design rights, registered designs, copyright, and trade secrets,. The support focusses on the strategic management of IP as a business asset and on routes to commercialisation of IP, such as licensing.

Finally, SMARTCymru provides financial support to Welsh businesses for their investment in Research, Development and Innovation. It supports businesses to introduce new technology and specialist knowledge to speed up the commercialisation of new products, processes and services. It also aims to encourage businesses to undertake technical and commercial feasibility studies to identify new opportunities for R&D projects and it financially supporting businesses to develop new products, processes and services through research & development and helps businesses exploit the results of their research and development.

One entrepreneur in the construction sector, who has benefited from the Welsh Government’s support of innovation, is Andy Roberts from North Wales.

A niche housebuilder, with his small team he developed and patented a rapid construction technique to significantly reduce build times and enhance the build quality of new homes.

RapidBuild is an accelerated-build technique that involves the construction of a durable, block-work ‘inner skin’ of a house, onto which a roof, windows and other fittings can be added before conventional materials are used to construct the external walls.

The technique requires specially designed braces that anchor the inner wall to an external scaffolding system that secures the structure during the initial build process.

RapidBuild says the technique can reduce build times by up to 40%, particularly by enabling teams working inside the structure to access the site more rapidly than with conventional techniques. It also claims the system delivers enhanced insulation and waterproofing values and allows house builders to employ traditional ‘brick and block’ construction for the external walls, rather than opting for a timber-frame construction that can lead to issues such as damp and fire risk.

Armed with results from field tests of the new technique, Roberts knew that if RapidBuild was to be a commercial success then he would

“

need to put it through a costly, professional testing process, as well as securing patents, both for the technique and the design for the brace system.

However, the company secured Welsh Government innovation funding, backed by EU cash, to finance a feasibility study which included rigorous strength testing under various climate and weather conditions, alongside a range of performance and health and safety measures. The technique passed the testing criteria, including confirmation of the time and cost savings afforded by RapidBuild, before further testing of the brace design itself was carried out.

The feasibility study served as a technical endorsement and allowed the company to secure two specific patents. The company has held talks with two major housebuilders and recently signed a deal with a chain of builders’ merchants to stock its brace system.

The Welsh Government funding not only helped RapidBuild to establish technical and commercial credibility but has supported an innovation with the potential to enhance sustainable development in the housing sector. Creating more resilient, affordable and energy efficient housing is one of the

The open innovation pilot has given us valuable wider exposure to a diverse range of sectors including defence, pharmaceuticals and electronics.

It has allowed us to connect with new industry and academic contacts to develop solutions and draw on skills and expertise.

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commitments linked to the 2015 Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act, designed to improve the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of Wales.

“For years, the UK house building sector has failed to keep pace with population and income growth, resulting in far fewer homes being built than the much-quoted 300,000 per annum that is needed,’’ said Roberts. “Receiving the initial support from Welsh Government established RapidBuild as a serious entity and was a catalyst for the successful commissioning of the BRE studies. Although the funding was crucial, the associated support that we received from innovation and funding specialists has put the business on a firm footing, and we are excited by the opportunities that lie ahead.

The fully accredited RapidBuild process will allow builders to deliver more houses, in less time and with a greater build quality.”

Adam Grant, RapidBuild designer said: “The Welsh innovation programme was of great assistance to us. RapidBuild has perfected the way in which the system is used, making it even faster and safer.

“What we are doing now is assisting developers - private and social - build homes with our product. This means our team who are skilled in its process use the product and erect the home. The reason for this is because most developers have a set way of building and don’t want to change to use the system, which is fair enough. So, we implemented a core team that works with them to build the structure to their plans, enabling them the best of both worlds - a traditional home built in record times and they keep control of the rest of the development.’’ n

Reacting to the research Innovation enjoys a favourable climate in the Welsh Construction sector as a selection of just some of the businesses featured in the Welsh Government’s Advances Wales demonstrates.

PINACL SOLUTIONS Housing associations can better maintain their properties and improve tenant health, thanks to innovative sensor technology from a St Asaph-based company.

A growing number of social housing providers are using the sensors, developed by Pinacl Solutions, to reduce their maintenance bills by detecting issues such as damp, fuel poverty and abandoned properties.

Among early adopters of the technology are Newport City Homes and Halton Housing.

The sensors give social housing providers a real-time insight into the health of each of their properties with alerts being automatically generated if problems arise or are predicted to arise.

The sensors can monitor humidity, temperature, CO2 and movement and are able to provide hourly readings on the dashboard.

Up to four sensors are installed in homes, typically covering the bathroom, bedroom, living room and kitchen. Pinacl’s system includes sensors, an Internet of Things (IoT) network and an application dashboard.

“Social housing providers are responsible for managing tens of thousands of properties, often with extremely small teams,’’ said Mark Lowe business development director Pinacl Solutions.

“Poor property conditions cause serious problems for the property and, more importantly, tenant health if they are not addressed quickly. It costs in the region of £25,000 to fully refit the average social housing property – a cost that our technology helps to avoid.”

CARDIFF UNIVERSITY Scientists at Cardiff University are developing a self-healing system for building stone and masonry.

Over time, masonry structures are slowly attacked by physical, chemical and biological changes which cause them to deteriorate until fractures occur, which, if allowed to develop, can become critical.

Due to the growing costs associated with the maintenance and repair of masonry structures, there is significant interest from industry in self-healing technology.

Researchers at Cardiff University have already been developing self-healing concrete and is now working on a system for building stone and masonry. Once applied, any damage to the stone will trigger the release of bacteria and a range of ‘helper’ chemicals, allowing the damage to start repairing itself autonomously.

Naturally occurring microorganisms such as bacteria which can produce mineral deposits when mixed with certain chemicals are key to the technology. One such mineral produced by bacteria is calcium carbonate, which is one of the main components in rocks and various other masonry materials.

As part of the study, the team is looking at the different ways that bacteria, along with the precursor chemicals, can be introduced into building stone and masonry, as well as the benefits that it could bring in a range of situations.

Throughout the two-year project, the team will be developing ways to engineer self-healing systems into masonry, whether this is during the material’s production phase or once the masonry has been used as a building material.

One possible application would be to produce a liquid or suspension, which could be bought from a DIY store, containing all of the bacteria and chemicals that could be sprayed onto masonry to repair damage.

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Showcasing Wales most innovative construction businesses

Green Edge Applications Limited (GEA) specialises in developing environmental digital applications. The company was launched to address problems shared by waste and industrial companies, such as helping organisations to understand their legal duties and improving access to information. With over 20 years’ experience working for industrial and waste sector organisations and regulatory bodies, Jane Hall, the Director of GEA, employs her specialist skill-base to assist companies in improving environmental management practices through GEA’s products and services.

MyWasteApp, developed by GEA, is a web-based application which comprehensively connects producers of waste with the waste industry.

WasteApp processes information on waste companies and the wastes they’re able to accept and translates this information into easy to use search tools to enable users to find waste treatment facilities based on their waste types or by waste activity type. GEA also develops bespoke environmental software to assist with environmental challenges such as compliance management and reporting waste duty of care requirements.

GEA are in the process of developing a programme of on-line environmental training which will be accessible to all employees regardless of experience, technical knowledge or qualifications.

The long-term goal for GEA is to provide a comprehensive range of on-line training and software tools to improve environmental performance.

Our ethos is to make your life easier by using technology to resolve environmental challenges.

Established in 2010 by Managing Director Martin Jenkins, Hazelwood Carpentry Contractors Ltd has built up an enviable reputation for providing high quality carpentry and joinery services in the commercial construction sector in a safe and timely manner. They have established themselves as the preferred carpentry and joinery company for main contractor partners for commercial carpentry & joinery The quality of their workmanship, combined with the experience and knowledge of their professional team ensures full compliance, best value and greater cost certainty.

By forming close relationships and identifying with their customer’s requirements, Hazelwood Carpentry Contractors Ltd provide innovative solutions that ensure they deliver on time. Their main contract partners have found them to be very hands on and focused on delivery rather than commercial advantage.

Hazelwood Carpentry Contractors Ltd customers return to them time and time again, however, they don’t take this for granted and continually strive to exceed expectations on each and every project they work on. They are determined to continue this ethos, and have committed to continuously improve every aspect of their relationship with customers, supply chain and workforce.

Hazelwood Carpentry Contractors Ltd employ 29 people, with a further 50+ sub contract carpenters working on contracts throughout South West England and Wales.

www.greenedgeapps.co.uk Jane@greenedgeapps.co.uk

www.hazelwoodcarpentry.co.uk info@hazelwoodcarpentry.co.uk 01443 841 717

Hornbill was established in 1989, by Russell Scaplehorn and David Williams with the vision to build long term partnerships with clients through technical excellence and unsurpassed customer care. Over the years the company has grown into a full turn key solution for electrical, instrumentation and training services.

Hornbill’s expertise spans a diversity of market sectors, most notably the utilities, oil, petrochemicals, cryogenics and metal industries. Their services include high voltage, low voltage, instrumentation, panel manufacture, systems design engineering, calibration, procurement, personnel hire and training.

Individually, each service is provided by highly skilled and experienced engineers and tailored to your specific needs.

Their head office and training facility, Hornbill Industrial Training, are based in Neath, South Wales with additional offices at Resolven and Mold.

www.hornbill.co.uk sales@hornbill.co.uk 01792 818 111

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Keeble Whelan Integrated Construction (KWIC) Limited are an innovative constructor, specialising in partnering and collaboration. KWIC’s vision for the construction sector is in line with Welsh Government’s integrated approach to enable the growth of a dynamic construction industry. Local businesses, academia and innovative professionals collaborating to deliver an economically and environmentally sustainable industry based upon innovative extended markets supporting economic, environmental and social well-being in Wales.

KWIC have targeted the market in the promotion and development of Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in particular the utilisation of the existing local supply chain in Wales. Their philosophy creates ongoing opportunities and support for local SMEs and aims to maximise the spend of the Welsh pound in Wales.

By forming a sustainable, collaborative delivery approach, KWIC look to maximise both employment and training opportunities within communities, in line with Welsh Government initiatives.

KWIC have developed innovative key working principles to achieve common objectives that deliver benefit for all; through mutually beneficial alignment.

• Common vision and leadership • Collaborative culture and behaviours • Collaborative processes and tools By embedding these key working principles into the makeup and culture of the organisation it allows KWIC to deliver important benefits through their constructions.

www.kwic.wales rod@kwic.wales 07881 580 912 james@kwic.wales 07814 821 610

Mike Thomas, the current Managing Director, founded MWT Civil Engineering in 2001. Mike was born in North Wales and joined Laing Civil Engineering fresh from school whilst they constructed the A55 trunk road through his home Town.

Mike worked with Laing’s for 18 years and worked his way up the management ladder from setting out engineer of the A55 to Project planning manager at Sizewell B PowerStation. In 1997 mike took over as areas manager at Laings North Wales office and it was during this time he realised there was a shortage of small professional companies in North Wales with the knowledge and skilled to undertake civil engineering type work.

The Companies key phrase was “small company with big company mentality” and Mike soon established MWT as the company with the willingness and ability to tackle a wide range of projects often coming up with ingenious and unique solutions to solve a problem.

MWT’s main customers are the North Wales local authorities although they do work for private clients and occasionally subcontract to other main contractors.

They undertake all forms of civil engineering and but have over recent years started to specialize in reinforced concrete structures and culverts and have also established a specialist site grit blasting and coatings division along with a separate small works department undertaking resin bound and bonded aggregate paving.

MWT are members of the civil engineering contractors association and federation of master builders, they have Health and safety accreditations from safe contractor and Avetta.

www.mwtcivilengineeringltd.co.uk mike.thomas@mwtgroup.co.uk 01492 330 770 / 07736 371 881

Newport Norse was established in 2014 to provide total property services to Newport City Council with the TUPE transfer of 210 staff. The relationship is a joint venture between NCC and Norse (a wholly owned public company). The contract is for a period of 10 years and initially had a contract value of £7.3M per annum. Newport Norse currently employs circa 330 staff and manages approximately 1500 assets for NCC with a total asset value of some £320M. In its client/landlord agent role Newport Norse ensures Newport City Council’s corporate landlord policy is adhered to.

As service provider, Newport Norse carries out statutory testing, inspection, provides planned and reactive maintenance services, cleaning and catering services, valuation and strategic property advice, asset management and provides a design consultancy and construction management service. The reason that this innovative public to public joint venture option was chosen over traditional outsourcing were; • To bring commercial experience into the Public Sector • To address perceived shortcomings in service delivery, relating to time cost and quality • To deliver better value for money • To ensure staff terms and conditions were protected • To maintain and grow employment and the economic benefits in Newport In coming up to the first four years of operation Newport Norse, has achieved this by increasing annual turnover to around £12m per annum, from £7.3m, by increasing employment by 110 new jobs, and providing NCC with nearly £1m in profit since its inception, amongst numerous other benefits. www.newportnorse.co.uk Phaedra.Cole@NewportNorse.co.uk 01633 240 459

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Showcasing Wales most innovative construction businesses

NPTC Group of Colleges is one of the largest groups of colleges and education providers in Wales and covers a third of the landmass of the country. It has nine campuses and provides almost every conceivable vocational area of education and training, including an outstanding 6th Form Academy based at Neath College and Apprenticeship programme.

The College also leads Skills Academy Wales (SAW), a partnership of several very experienced training providers who deliver between them a multi-million pound work-based learning contract, one of the largest public sector contracts in Wales. The Group also owns and runs an international language school in Hampshire, LSI Portsmouth.

The school has been independently assessed as ‘the UKs number one performing language school’.

The Group operates on four large Colleges in Wales and a further five smaller campuses, it also operates a number of successful subsidiary companies in England and Wales.

The College has maintained outstanding academic, and vocational success, as well as many sporting and cultural achievements. In work-based learning, its apprentices have won competitions and medals at all levels including WorldSkills.

The College has won many accolades over the years too: Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Silver Award; Association of Colleges (AoC) Beacon Awards for Teaching and Excellence in Business Administrations; AoC Beacon Award for Engaging with Learners who are Not in Employment, Education and Training (NEET); AoC Beacon Award (commended) British Council International Award; Buttle UK Quality Mark for supporting students who are in care. www.nptcgroup.ac.uk harris@nptcgroup.ac.uk 01639 648 010

Paragon Engineered Timber Ltd was formed Jan’18 and officially commenced trading as of July’ 18.

The new Timber Engineering business trading within the UK construction industry is situated strategically in Resolven, South Wales. It is perfectly placed to service South/Mid Wales, The South West of England and The Midlands specifically targeting ‘National’, ‘Regional’, ‘Local’ and ‘private’ builders as well as builders’ merchants selling a range of engineered timber products, predominately Trussed Rafters being the core product on offer at present.

In the medium/long term the business has the opportunity within its current customer base at the very least to develop and offer further products such as Engineered Floor Joists and Timberframe Panels.

Another exciting opportunity is expanding trading relationships with sister company Castle Carpentry Ltd to capitalize on opportunities as a ‘One Stop Shop’ option in the market place in terms of design, supply and installation of Engineered Timber products.

The business is built on a foundation of forward thinking, engaged and hardworking local people throughout the operation with cutting edge state of the art machinery.

Paragon has also invested significantly in terms of Technology to create savings for the business in operating efficiencies and costs as well as aiming to impact positively on the environment by way of working where possible paperless with the inclusion of portable devises/tablets to both the office and factory throughout.

ianferris@paragonetl.com 0163 986 5300

Read Construction Holdings Ltd (Read) is a family owned, Wrexham based Principal Contractor providing construct only and design and construct management services to clients within North Wales, North West England and Shropshire.

Established over 30 years ago, Read have achieved sustainable and controlled year on year growth in turnover. They maintain market share by applying the principles of best practice in all of our undertakings to deliver right first time projects that are on quality, on time and on budget.

Read’s Senior Management team has extensive experience across all construction types and contractual forms with a combined experience of over 130 years. Together with their supply chain, they bring award winning, industry leading knowledge for the benefit of clients, priding themselves on over 80% client’s awarding repeat business.

Read has the technical and professional resources and experience to deliver construct only, or designa and construct projects up to £10m construction value.

They promote engagement of their services through collaborative procurement routes and maintain places on several key collaborative frameworks including the North Wales Construction Framework.

www.readconstruction.co.uk general@readconstruction.co.uk 01978 721 950

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Remote Datum Ltd was started in 2008 to provide innovative, low cost remote monitoring for the construction and associated industry, which at that time was not taking full advantage of the technology available.

Remote Datum Ltd’s first product was the RDL Vibe unit which was designed through a number of iterations in collaboration with Caption Data Ltd and now is sold through CDL across the world.

The company went onto suppy and install low cost remote monitoring for vibration, subsidence, crack sensors and tilt sensors.

Remote Datum Ltd’s latest product is the TSS02 which is a remote monitor for measuring silt that is pumped into water courses, quite apart from the environmental damage that will occur, contractors (and others) can incur substantial fines from the authorities should they allow silt to be pumped into watercourses. The TSS02 will monitor the water for suspended solids (silt) and should parameters be exceeded the unit will send an alert SMS text & email to the stakeholders, all the data can then be viewed graphically on the web portal.

The next product Remote Datum wishes to develop is a low cost remote concrete temperature monitoring system for contractors to ensure that concrete cures at the correct temperature. From this information they can strike/strip shutters early, thereby saving time and money.

www.remotedatum.co.uk enquiries@remotedatum.co.uk 01492 541 465

Scott Parnell started in 2012 when friends Dave Scott and Steve Parnell spotted a gap in the market for an independent merchant and decided to go into business together. With 70 years combined experience in the drainage and civil engineering market they wanted their company to stand out in the marketplace. They vowed to give their customers truly personal service while providing expert knowledge on their product range. Their first branch opened in Witham, Essex and more followed in quick succession. Scott Parnell now has depots in Milton Keynes and Hirwaun, Wales, a sales office in Romford, where its dedicated rail division is also based. Scott Parnell provide a one-stop shop for all your groundworks and civil engineering requirements, while offering friendly, independent advice on how to find the best product for your schedule and specifications, offering innovative solutions.

Specialising in landscaping, drainage and geo-technical supplies, they are also experts in water management schemes, rail and utilities and stock a huge range of building materials suitable for all projects – be it residential, roads, commercial or in the leisure industry.

They have materials for a major redevelopment, a handful of new houses or constructing a new state-of-the-art leisure complex, and the expertise and knowledge you need to lay a solid foundation for your project.

Scott Parnell highlighted a gap where large national merchants were closing branches and pulling out of the valleys.

With significant investment and hard work, they have established a £10m business in wales, employing over 16 people.

Seven Oaks Modular are a rapidly expanding, innovative timber frame design and manufacturer based in South West Wales. Established in 1996 by CEO Jonathan Hale, Sevenoaks started as a purpose made joinery. They now design, manufacture and innovate timber frame components for large national homebuilders, contractors and housing associations across the United Kingdom.

With timber frame fast becoming the norm across the U.K. SO Modular adapts and grows with the industry. As pioneers and innovators in the industry Seven Oaks Modular can supply eco-friendly, sustainable, low carbon buildings at competitive rates. Their open and closed panels can be purpose built to customers’ requirements. Their Triso-Warm initiative with blown insulation will reach the U-Value levels beyond your requirements.

Seven Oaks Modular current research and development projects consist of manufacturing carbon-neutral but affordable timber-frame homes; homes that are so thermally efficient, with U-values so low, they require minimal heating and cooling, potentially completely removing the need for a central heating system at all.

www.scottparnell.com sales@scottparnell.com 01376 502 676

www.somodular.co.uk chale@somodular.co.uk 01639 620 240

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GOS Tool and Engineering has embraced innovation and worked with a university to transform itself into a market leader, as Peter Jackson reports

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Made of steel

G

OS Tool & Engineering Services was a small family company when brothers Wayne and Neil Gregory took it over.

Now, the Blaenavon based engineering company has an annual turnover of about £14m and employs 110 people. It occupies a three-acre site near the old Iron Works in Blaenavon. The site has a manufacturing area of more than 38,000 sq ft with an additional area of 5,000 sq ft taken up by offices, stores and amenities.

This is the historical home of steel making on the edge of the old South Wales Coalfield, but GOS Tool & Engineering Services is a business which has embraced innovation to position itself to thrive in the new economy.

A real turning point for the business came in 2008, when a business for which it did subcontracting work went into liquidation and GOS bought its assets and took on its work in the rail sector.

This now makes up 90% of the company’s work. It manufactures, converts and supplies road rail construction equipment.

Neil explains: “We convert excavators - Doosan mainly - to run on railway lines.

A lot are used for installing electrification infrastructure, so we are involved in those kind of projects, and general maintenance in stations, on sidings, and on the mainline, anything to do with the railways.’’

He says there are one or two other firms in the UK doing the same thing and perhaps four or five in Europe.

“But,’’ he adds, “We’ve developed with Jewsons over the past 10 years to become the market leader.’’

It can supply a range of construction equipment from other leading manufacturers including Doosan, Komatsu, Kobelco, JCB and Caterpillar specially converted to work on rail.

Its technology also allows the ability to convert equipment to many different gauge widths for overseas markets and it exports worldwide from its Blaenavon base .

“We work in the UK, Germany and Australia,’’ says Neil. “From here equipment goes to Australia, then onto a roll-on-roll-off ferry at Southampton, it then spends 40 days on the water to Fremantle and, from there, it goes overland up to Western Australia. That’s ongoing work through a customer of ours and

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we have another couple machines to do for them over the next year or so.’’

GOS also manufactures a range of ancillary equipment including trailers, trolleys, sleeper laying and handling equipment, grabs and trailer attachments. It specialises in the conversion and adaptation of a variety of new and used construction, scrap handling, environmental and demolition equipment.

The business’s combined resources of machine, fabrication, painting and fitting shops together with its design and engineering capabilities allows it to undertake a range of projects. These include twin and high rise cabs, extended booms, manufacture of special hydraulic cylinders, ripper adaptors, dust suppressant systems, special buckets and attachments.

Apart from rail, its continued investment programme has allowed it to provide a range of services to a wide customer base across a number of industrial sectors.

GOS produces machined components including close tolerance tooling, shafts and rolls, gearbox and bearing housing assemblies. It can produce and repair a range of machined fabrications.

It also offers site engineering service including the manufacture and erection of steel structures, hoppers and conveyors together with a full on-site welding and fitting

“

Our success in innovation is a real recognition of our relationship with the University of South Wales and our graduate engineers.

service for plant refurbishment and installation.

The business has further developed so that it now provides contract maintenance teams including fitters, electricians, welders, fabricators and machine tool fitters in a number of locations. Using these teams, supplemented by additional full time factory based operators as required, allows GOS to provide a solution to the maintenance of large complex industrial sites.

It has also invested in CNC equipment over the last few years focusing on four specific areas: • Profiling and Plasma cutting; • Vertical Boring; • Milling; • Turning.

It has focused on developing its CNC business to penetrate new markets and support its traditional operations by improving output and quality, to supply components to its in-house assembly and fabrication teams and to supplying a range of services to the larger end of the CNC market.

GOS also operates a range of CNC milling and machine centres to allow it to service a range of customers in the automotive, steel, aluminium and electronics industries. Its milling and CNC turning operations also allows it to provide a service on a variety of small items including small flanges, links, and milled shafts.

In its profile and fabricating shop GOS manufactures a range of structural and architectural steelwork, including steel sculptures and work for a number of leading artists from across the UK, such as for “Opening Lines” a 90 metre long, 60-tonne steel and glass divide at Gateshead Interchange Bus Station by artist Danny Lane.

Other work includes a fully fabricated and installed footbridge at Victoria Park, Ebbw Vale. The bridge is 35m long, weighing nearly 35 tonnes and crosses a railway line and river. The bridge fabricated in the GOS workshop was delivered to site in two halves and installed over a weekend. Similarly, the 20-metre long Walpole Railway Footbridge in Llanhilleth was fully

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fabricated at GOS and installed overnight.

But rail remains the business’s main market and it’s particularly buoyant at the moment with the approval of Network Rail’s £34.7bn five year spending plan, CP6. The Office of Road and Rail has given the green light to proposals for £31bn of spending in England and Wales and £4bn in Scotland over the five-year Control Period 6 (CP6) from April 2019. This includes £7.7bn on maintenance and £16.6bn on renewing existing railway.

Network Rail’s plans represent a 17% increase in spending on renewals from the £14.2bn committed in CP5 and in November last year, the government announced it would be investing nearly £48bn into the rail network across CP6 – £10bn more than in CP5.

This was broken down into the £34.7bn supplied by a direct government grant, along with a further £13.2bn coming from track access charges and other sources, such as Network Rail’s property portfolio.

The plans also feature a £245m research and development fund and a £40m performance innovation fund.

“We are pretty optimistic about the future with lots of new products to innovate and to

put in front of the market,’’ says Neil.

Apart from rail work, GOS is also working for Balfour Beatty on its £185m contract to install a huge power cable through the Channel Tunnel. The ElecLink high voltage direct current (HVDC) interconnector is designed to enhance both the UK and France’s energy capacity and security, helping both countries to meet their energy needs and potentially leading to cheaper fuel costs. The ElecLink interconnector will have a total length of 69 km and will link the RTE (Réseau de Transport d’Électricité) substation at Les Mandarins, France, with the National Grid (NGET) substation in Sellindge, UK. “We take orders 18 months in advance now,’ says Neil. “It’s a specialist market with about 20 big players in the UK of which two or three dominate the market.’’

And the company intends to keep its market position by continuing to innovate.

“We have six full-time engineers who are working on the development projects all the time,’’ he says. “We work in a variety of areas, track machines, wheel machines, sweeper handling equipment, cranes.’’

One of the ways GOS stays at the cutting edge of its niche sector is by employing graduates, who are trained while studying.

Neil explains: “Our success in innovation is a real recognition of our relationship with the University of South Wales and our graduate engineers. About eight or nine years ago we took on a local boy who got his degree from Bath and he worked three years and then went to live in Bristol. There was a sequence of taking on graduates and training them for three years and then they would go back to the big cities.

“However, the university has a program called Network 75 whereby we take local boys and girls to do a degree, where they work a couple of days a week with us and go to college for two or three days a week and they then get a degree over five years without incurring debts and they have a job.

That has worked really well for us. We have taken on five graduates through the University of South Wales.’’

GOS has won a number of awards, including the Insider Made in Wales Creative Design Awards in 2013 and 2015 and the Business and Education Partnerships People Development Award. n

Growing, learning and developing Network75, has been running since September 2000, is the University of South Wales’ combined work and study route to a degree. Undergraduates apply their academic knowledge to real-life work within a host company. Network75 trainees have the opportunity to gain both academic knowledge and practical experience, making them industry-ready graduates. Network75 provides students with a fully sponsored degree, but also the opportunity to work while they study.

Students are also with a company for up to five years while studying, allowing them to grow and develop within the structure of a business, which has, upon graduation, an employee who knows the business thoroughly.

The scheme boasts a 100% employability rate for its graduates.

Available courses include: • BEng (Hons) Civil Engineering; • BEng (Hons) Electrical and Electronic Engineering; • BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering; • BSc (Hons) Construction Project Management; • BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying and Commercial Management

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Showcasing Wales most innovative construction businesses

SIDERISE have provided acoustic, fire and thermal insulation solutions for building facades for almost 50 years. Siderise passive fire protection systems are industry leading and third party certified.

The SIDERISE curtain walling firestop was the first to market internationally and their solution for ventilated facades was the first within Europe.

Extensive experience in architectural acoustics compliments their range enabling them to offer complete solutions that encompass insulation, integrity in terms of fire and noise control.

The technical team at SIDERISE not only has the technical expertise to provide acoustic and fire safety advice but also the practical ‘hands on’ knowledge with respect to installation. Siderise products are tested to the European standards detailed in ETAG026 Part 3 which include however are not exclusive to EN1364-4, EN1364-3, EN1366-4.

Siderise’ ‘Open State Cavity Barriers’ RH / RV are the first third party approved - ewcl5 certified, cavity barriers for ventilated facades and are the only such product approved for use by Dubai Civil Defence.

The unique ‘Siderise® Site Service’ ensures that everything from product selection to final installation runs smoothly. Delivering • Easy to Install products • Comprehensive product information • Standard Details & Project Specific Details • Method Statements • Checklists • Quick Reference Guides • Installation guidance documents • Benchmark Installation • Project Specific Testing • Toolbox Training • Site Inspection - Supported by our industry leading Installation Inspection & Reporting App www.siderise.com acades@siderise.com 01656 730 833

SIPs Wales specialise in the design, supply and Installation of SIPs (structural insulated panels) buildings to the construction industry and homeowner.

SIPs are a modern alternative to traditional materials, cost effective, environmental and energy efficient with high structural strength and short build times.

SIPs Wales are based in West Wales and operate throughout Wales, South West and West Midlands. They offer a personal approach to all clients, discussing every detail with them to ensure total satisfaction and foster a lasting relationship. SIPs are perfect for all types of buildings Houses, extensions, offices and commercials, surgeries, churches, garden offices, barn conversions, care homes, Hotels, Holiday chalets, garden rooms etc. We are a forward thinking company, providing innovative solutions across our core discipline to industry leading quality and standards.

www.sipswales.co.uk info@sipswales.co.uk 01550 720 533

Buildings currently account for around 40% of UK energy consumption and carbon emissions. SPECIFIC Innovation and Knowledge Centre at Swansea University aims to address this energy challenge by developing a new concept – Active Buildings – that can generate, store and release their own heat and electricity, using only the energy from the sun.The centre brings together world class academic and industrial expertise in the fields of functional coatings, solar energy, battery storage and chemical conversion, alongside unique pilot manufacturing facilities and business development expertise, to develop a range of products that can be integrated into one smart energy system.

Together, SPECIFIC and its partners support the commercialisation of disruptive technologies by taking the concept from research through to full scale demonstration. In 2016, the first full scale Active Building was completed at Swansea University’s Bay Campus, which was energy positive in its first year of operation – generating one and half times the energy it used – and proved the concept in a classroom. Since then, SPECIFIC has built the UK’s first energy-positive Active Office.

These demonstrators are at the forefront of smart building design and solar technology, and they are vital in the wider adoption of innovative, sustainable building design.

SPECIFIC is funded by Innovate UK, EPSRC and the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government.

www.specific.eu.com info-specific@swansea.ac.uk +44 (0)1792 606 867

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From design to fabrication and installation, S4S offer a complete service.

Steel 4 Structures Ltd was established in September 2010 by Tom Phillips. Tom is the Managing Director and is supported by the S4S team which includes his father Roger Phillips who is the company Commercial Manager. They are based from their 26000sqft workshop in Buckley, North Wales.

Since 2010 Steel 4 Structures (S4S) has enjoyed a continued growth from its growing commercial customer base.

Steel 4 Structure’s core values embody Tom’s beliefs that communication at all levels should be clear, honest and straightforward. S4S will always work with integrity and respect, listening to clients’ ideas and suggestions and offering the same in return. They always work to meet and exceed clients’ specific requirements.

S4S’s aim is to earn clients’ trust by maintaining an honest and straightforward approach from tender through to completion.

Facilities and services include: new state of the art robotic plasma structural fabrication system; 6m x 2m high definition CNC plasma table (up to 30mm capacity); 10 tonne over head crane; Mig, Tig MMA welders; 125 tonne steel worker; semi-automatic band saws; pillar drills; lathe; milling machine; 3 tonne FLT; On-site welding and carbon arc gouging equipment and airless spray painting equipment.

As part of their continuous drive to maintain the highest standards, in February 2019 S4S have gained BS-EN 1090 execution class 3 accreditation.

They will continue to strive to provide the best service for our customers, old and new.

www.steel4structures.com info@s4suk.com 01244 552 043

Tremorfa Ltd was established in 1984 predominantly as an electrical contractor. We have since grown organically to offer a diverse range of solutions in electrical, mechanical, fire detection and alarms, electronic security and gates and barriers.

After securing a contract to carry out the installations of security systems in South Wales Police’s new custody suites in 2007, Tremorfa recognised a clear gap in the market for an easy to use fully interfaced electronic security solution.

We realised that not only could we offer a complete security solution from concept to completion, but we could provide an efficient, easier to use, and more robust package, whilst offering the customer economic benefits. This is when the TASICCA concept was born.

Our TASICCA products are designed specifically for the custodial environment and with the end user in mind. TASICCA comprises of several modules including CCTV, Cell Call, Door Access, Intercoms, Affray and Digital and Audio Recording. They connect to one another flawlessly and create a seamlessly interfaced solution which is simple to operate but allows operators to perform their job with minimum complications and maximum efficiency.

Our fundamental and core belief is that our systems are never overcomplicated, over-engineered, or over-priced. Since initial conception, our products have been installed across the length and breadth of the UK and are now performing vital functions within the custody suites of over ten UK Police Forces.

Our most recent innovation has been the introduction of a new bespoke in-cell communication system.

TWEC Ltd was formed in 2014 when Thomas Errat finished a position working in Africa as a mining consultant.

TWEC Ltd are predominantly a traditional building company who undertake projects that vary in size from small one storey extensions in their local area, to bespoke new build projects across the nation.

TWEC offer a range of traditional building services along with a project management service which would include the incorporation of services and trades not within their own remit as builders, such as plumbing and electrical services and any other specialist trades which are project specific.

The company is currently are using products from the ICF (insulated concrete forms) sector to conduct new build homes and extensions. It has brought a new dimension to how TWEC operate as a company. All staff have all been trained as competent installers, and all employees are all pleased to be learning new skills.

www.tremorfa.com info@tremorfa.com 02920 330 000

www.tweconsultants.com tomeratt@tweconsultants.com 0845 505 84 85

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Showcasing Wales most innovative construction businesses

Williams Homes is a family business based in Bala, Gwynedd where we have our head office and joinery workshop which produces timber frame houses, doors and windows in our purpose-built factory unit. All our joinery and frames are produced by time served traditional joiners and all our panel designs are independently tested certified. Our complete supply and fit service helps to reduce the amount of errors which are associated with construction. Being the supplier of the frame and windows puts the responsibility on us to make sure that everything is co-ordinated so that the building becomes a sealed shell as soon as possible. In most of our work we use Accoya which is manufactured using sustainably sourced wood and achieves aesthetically pleasing, durable, stable, long-lasting results. We also specify easi-joists as standard, which help to minimise the amount of steel work needed, due to greater spans achieved.

This also speeds up the 1st fix process for both electrical and plumbing trades. We only use our own contractors to erect our kits and fit our joinery, this again helps to ensure a quality finished product. We offer a level of service and advice that our competitors cannot compete with. We have negotiated extremely competitive prices with various regional suppliers, these are passed on to our clients to assist them in achieving the desired project within their desired budget.

www.williams-homes.co.uk info@williams-homes.co.uk 01678 521 781

Wynne Construction was founded by Charles Wynne in 1926. They are a leading construction company operating throughout North and Mid Wales and the North West of England.

An award-winning company with extensive design and build experience, their in-house team has vast experience leading design partners from inception to completion ensuring all projects are delivered on programme and budget.

Wynne have delivered £100m+ of both traditional and design & build projects across North Wales in the last 5 years.

Undertaking work on traditional, partnering and design & build contracts, their comprehensive portfolio comprises wide-ranging projects. Our values form the foundations of our philosophy, to which we remain steadfast: • Total commitment to quality/reliability • They care about their customers, the services they provide and the environment they live in.

• Clear understanding/appreciation of clients’ requirements –positively challenge the way they do things to exceed client expectations.

• Their collaborative and stakeholder engagement process is applied to every project; allowing them to engage in a comprehensive programme of collaborative working.

• Good teamwork and co-operation.

Supported by Wynne’s design/ supply-chain partners, they have a long history of successfully delivering complex projects to tight budget and programme restraints.

• Forward thinking. Every aspect of their ISO9001/BIM Level 2/PAS1192-2:2013 accredited procedures and working ethos focus on promoting early and ongoing engagement with project stakeholders, specialists and long-term partners. www.wynneconstruction.co.uk chris@wynneconstruction.co.uk 01745 586 666

Zip-Clip was created in 2004 with an idea to make the installation of HVAC and electrical services easier. From its concept the product range and company has grown considerably over the past 15 years.

Since its initial idea Zip-Clip has now grown into a manufacturer and innovator in wire suspension systems to the construction industry. Our products are used for the suspension of HVAC, M&E, acoustic boarding, signage, seismic restraints and more recently in civil engineering applications.

The company has grown from its first small industrial unit in Newtown to a brand new manufacturing and sales facility in Welshpool. In 2009 Zip-Clip looked to increase sales overseas with an export drive. Sales in Europe increased to a level that in 2011 Zip-Clip SARL was established in France to support our European customers. We have continued to develop further afield and in 2018 Zip-Clip Pty Ltd was created in Australia.

We have partnered with a number of organisations with Zip-Clip being made available in most countries around the world. Our project list is extensive and includes EXPO 2020 in Dubai, the World Cup Football Stadiums in Qatar, Boeing Goldcare hangers at Gatwick and previous projects include the London Olympics, Harry Potter studios, Selfridges, Tesco, Liddle, Ferrari, JLR, M&S, Natural History Museum and many more.

www.zip-clip.com info@zip-clip.com 01686 623 366

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First class Cardiff University’s School of Engineering is internationally renowned for the impact of its research and its ‘Civil & Construction Engineering’ was ranked first in the UK in the latest government research assessment framework (REF2014) of UK universities. They are fully committed to conducting innovative research that can be used to solve modern problems and improve the quality of life.

The Cardiff BIM for Smart Engineering Team has been focusing on BIM teaching & training, research & development, and industry engagement since 2006, the total value of their research funding is in excess of £30M, with a team of more than 40 researchers (research fellows, associates and PhDs).

A first class BIM & VR lab was setup in 2014, and in 2018 an

“

Cardiff BIM for Smart Engineering Team stands in the front tier of BIM research and industry implementation in UK and internationally.

international BIM for Smart Engineering R&D Innovation Centre was set up, which is jointly supported by Cardiff University, buildingSMART international, China Communications Construction Company, China State Construction Engineering Group, Dalian University of Technology, Chongqing City and China Electricity Council Association.

Cardiff BIM for Smart Engineering Team stands in the front tier of BIM research and industry implementation in UK and internationally. Starting from 2008, by working with BRE and buildingSMART UK to contribute to UK and international BIM standards and policy making, the team has established its leading position supported by a large number of research and industry projects, their working partners across UK, EU, USA and China, including BRE, buildingSMART international, AEC3, Arup, Mott Macdonald, Atkins, Royal DHV, Waldeck, Alun Griffiths, Welsh Government, Construction Future Wales, Wales local councils; and partners in EU and China.

Academically, Cardiff BIM for Smart Engineering team has built close links with worldwide BIM research excellent centres, e.g. Georgia University of Technology, University of Maryland,

Technical University of Berlin, Technical University of Munich, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Tsinghua University and Dalian University of Technology.

Most recently, the team has secured a funding agreement from China Communications Construction Company with a total investment of £1.2M (2018-2023) to support its research and knowledge transfer. The team is now leading an international buildingSMART project, working on BIM ISO standard and underlying open BIM platform development (total value: €2.5M, 2018-2020). The project will develop the IFC standards for Ports and Waterways area. The project includes multi-national teams from UK, China, Netherlands, Australia, USA, Germany, France, Japan and Korea. This project is highly prestigious and will contribute significantly to BIM industry implementation.

Another pioneering example project is MetaBIM - Smart BIM Compliance, total cost: ¥3M (2019.01 - 2022.01). This is a 3-year research project, sponsored by the China Communications Construction Company and Cardiff University, aims at developing a new generation digital BIM compliance platform, which underlines the institutional data, information and knowledge standardisation and orchestration, to enable automatic multi-national/organisational BIM standards compliance and quality checking, and ultimately lead to much more advanced and highly efficient BIM execution hence project productivity for the large organisation. The developed work will be validated in real infrastructural case study projects conducted by CCCC all over the world.

For more information, please visit – Prof. Haijiang LI website (https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/364413-li-haijiang)

www.cardiff.ac.uk

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Making waves

S

evenoaks Modular is helping change the ways in which buildings are made, while, at the same time, minimising their carbon footprint, not only in their construction, but throughout their lifetime.

The Neath-based company designs, supplies and erects timber frames for homes apartment blocks, retail outlets or education establishments.

It has been in business since 1996. Before that, the current chief executive Jonathan Hale was a carpenter.

Sevenoaks company manager Charlotte Hale explains: “He started on his own and then took on another two guys. He got into construction and then started a joinery business doing timber windows and timber stairs and then he moved into timber frames as that market started.’’

Now the business designs, manufactures and installs timber frame components for large national homebuilders such as Redrow, Bellway and Jehu, and contractors and housing associations across the UK. It also supplies all the frames required by sister company J G Hale Construction, playing a contributing role in the construction company’s recent success at the LABC South Wales Building Excellence Awards.

It rebranded as Sevenoaks Modular from July last year when it became a company in its own right, standing alongside JG Hale Construction.

It has recently signed a deal to work for leading energy and services company Engie on a multimillion pound project in Southmead Bristol to build more than 160 new homes.

Sevenoaks has also just signed a contract to move into new premises - also in Neath – with 10 times the floor area of its current base. The business now has an annual turnover of £8.5m and employs 80 people.

The company says that timber frame requires between 20% and 40% fewer on-site labour days, which means a shorter overall construction period. It boasts that a typical timber frame home can be wind and water tight in as little as one day regardless of the weather.

Not only that, but due to the majority of the manufacturing process happening off-site, this can reduce waste by 40% on average.

Sevenoaks Modular was formed to develop and promote an innovative product with the potential to transform construction, as we report.

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But the greatest environmental benefit comes from timber effectively being a carbon neutral product. Even allowing for transportation, it has the lowest CO2 emissions of any commercial building material, so that for every square metre of timber used instead of other building materials, 0.8 tonnes is saved from being emitted into the atmosphere.

Also, after construction, timber frame homes are more energy efficient than alternatively constructed homes and this means lower running costs in addition to a reduced carbon footprint. In fact, according to Sevenoaks, a timber frame home can save up to 4 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

“We want to be the most carbon neutral modular frame company and to achieve that we are working closely with the universities and with our clients and housing associations,’’ says Charlotte Hale.

“We are members of Wood Knowledge Wales and we are trying to decrease our carbon footprint by using more Welsh timber on our sites. But currently the supply of Welsh timber is not good so we are trying to push innovation in the supply chain and looking at a possible collaboration with a sawmill.’’

Sevenoaks’ modular units incorporate service voids for factory fitted electrics and plumbing. Its installed doors and windows along with external cladding allow for faster on-site installation. Also, pre-fitting windows and doors into the panels dispenses with the need for on-site storage and so minimises site traffic – further reducing carbon footprint - limiting breakages and no wasted space and time while waiting for relevant follow-on trades.

A ‘click clip’ installation system means the cladding can either be factory-fitted onto Sevenoaks’ modular wall panels before delivery to the site or fitted on-site after erection. This avoids the need for any wet trades, saving both time and money.

Sevenoaks also offers a range of roofing options, which are pre-engineered and factorymanufactured for ease of installation on-site.

It has an in-house CAD design team, allowing pre-fabrication to customer specification.

Sevenoaks believes that these advantages have made timber frames the fastest growing method of construction in the UK. The company invests in R&D to achieve carbon-neutral but affordable timber-frame homes that are thermally efficient. U-values –

which measure how effective a material is as an insulator are so low, according to Sevenoaks, that their buildings require minimal heating and cooling, even potentially completely removing the need for a central heating system at all.

This has been in large part achieved by Sevenoaks’ development of Triso-Warm, an innovative type of insulated timber frame that has the capacity to significantly reduce heating and energy bills.

Triso-Warm panels are a hybrid sips structurally insulted panels - which can be made for any wall specification and adjusted according to a client’s requirements. They are specifically engineered timber frame panels injected with PUR highly insulated foam. This foam expands and adheres to the inside of the panel creating an airtight seal. Last year, Triso-warm became the only UK produced timber frame of its kind to gain BBA approval – the stamp of approval required by the construction industry.

Triso-Warm, can, according to Sevenoaks, cut heating and energy bills to virtually zero.

“The Triso-Warm panel is an extra cost but in terms of benefits, these outweigh the costs,’’ says Charlotte.

The product achieves its ultra-low u-values with high strength panels, promoting off-site manufacture with factory controlled quality.

Triso-Warm is also non-restrictive in terms of design, providing a complete building envelope – walls, floors, ceiling and roofs.

Sevenoaks, however, is not content to sit back and rely on the current qualities of Triso-Warm.

“In the new factory we will have a research and development hub, which will be in conjunction with Cardiff Metropolitan University Neath College and Wood Knowledge Wales,’’ says Charlotte.

She adds: “We are still developing because we don’t want to stop there. We have a KTP student in conjunction with Cardiff Metropolitan University working on further developing that panel.’’

The company has also formed other partnerships in higher education to try to ensure that it remains at the cutting edge.

“We have a close partnership with Neath Port Talbot College. There will also be a skills hub in the new factory as it’s quite hard to find skills in the marketplace for timber frame. We can train in-house because we have a lot of experienced personnel here. We train on the Saturday mornings and the evenings and in the new premises we can train by putting a house up inside the factory.’’

Apart from its KTP with Cardiff Met, Sevenoaks also employs graduates throughout the business.

The business continues to push the theme of innovation hard, making it part of its culture.

Charlotte explains: “We promote innovation internally encouraging ideas, we have an ideas box and regular staff meetings and we get our flow of ideas from workers on the shop floor and these are ideas about both processes and products.’’ n

Five star success Bluestone National Park resort in Pembrokeshire is a complex of lodges and cottages in 500 acres of a national park.

Sevenoaks designed, manufactured and erected 115 new timber lodges across two phases. Constructed in 2011, the first phase consisted of 65 lodges followed by the second phase of 50 constructed in 2015.

Sevenoaks provided the timber frame superstructures, floor cassettes, timber cladding and timber roof shingles on all 115 lodges.

The timber cladding was pre–installed on each panel in the factory which negated the need for follow on trades and provided a programme and cost saving to the client. The lodges are finished to a high specification to meet the resort’s five-star credentials.

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Raising the bar New technologies bring the construction sector huge opportunities for progress and Willmott Dixon is working to be at the forefront of these changes as we report

M

-SParc in Anglesey, Wales’ first dedicated science park, has been showcased at the House of Commons as a trailblazing example of UK digital construction, after winning a national award.

The innovative £20m facility, for Menai Science Park Ltd, part of Bangor University, which was completed last year, provides office, workshop, and 23 laboratories with space for up to 700 people.

The project, delivered by construction company Willmott Dixon alongside architect FaulknerBrowns, won National Digital Construction Project of the Year award at the industry’s Constructing Excellence National Awards. It went on to take centre stage at a Westminster showcase of construction ‘pushing the boundaries of excellence’, attended by industry leaders, politicians and civil servants.

M-SParc is operated by Bangor University and as Wales’ first dedicated science park, offers 31,200 sq ft of lettable space configured as 45 office spaces ranging in size from 156 sq ft to 2,690 sq ft, 23 laboratories and two doubleheight workshops.

Designed to drive growth in knowledgebased science, with a focus on low carbon energy, the environment and ICT sectors, M-SParc has already become an important regional centre by attracting start-ups and drawing inward investment to North Wales.

Award judges praised the use of state-ofthe-art digital technology, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), in the design and build of the project, as well as in the process of attracting potential occupants.

The building was being sold to tenants while still a building site, so Willmott Dixon offered potential occupiers the chance to see the building evolve using innovative VR glasses.

The contractor also provided an environmental impact visualisation system, allowing users to better understand energy use through interactive touch screens.

With an initial target of 15% occupancy set, these digital innovations, combined with the building’s quality, sustainability and inward investment credentials, saw 37% of the building occupied by innovators from day one.

Phase one of M-SParc involved building a three-storey facility to BREEAM Excellence standards, comprising offices, laboratory and workshop space for up to 700 people. It forms the hub for the entire Parc and a regional centre for a range of businesses from start-ups to large corporate companies.

Neal Stephens, managing director for Willmott Dixon Wales and South West The 20 acre site was landscaped within a parkland setting, with the first phase housing start-ups, accelerator and mature projects as well as an open innovation area. The project was made possible after Bangor University secured £11m of funding from the Welsh Government and £10m of European Regional Development funding.

As part of Willmott Dixon’s focus on Creating Thriving Communities, and M-SParc’s goal of maximising local spend, the company worked to procure North Wales-based suppliers, where possible. To ensure a local

supply chain with appropriate knowledge of digital construction, it provided collaborative workshops for suppliers, with project-specific BIM workshops for each package of works procured. Through enhancing suppliers’ digital skill-sets, it was able to spend £9m with suppliers within the LL postal region.

Anthony Dillon, Willmott Dixon’s Northern MD, said: “M-SParc will leave an economic legacy in the region for years to come by capitalising on the technological and scientific skills of our most talented people. The building will be a catalyst for this development, encompassing offices, labs, workshops and an open working area; the building is built to inspire.”

Pryderi ap Rhisiart, project manager for the university, said: “We are very pleased to be receiving this amazing building, on time and within budget. It’s been an incredible journey to get to this point and we’re so proud of the completed Science Park.”

M-SParc followed another ground-breaking Willmott Dixon initiative in Wales.

The company teamed up with robotics firm, Eksobionics, to trial a high-tech exoskeleton vest to protect and support supply chain partners working on a new school development in Cardiff.

Willmott Dixon is the first company in the construction industry to trial ‘Eksovest’ – an upper body exoskeleton vest that supports the arms during lifting.

Funded by Eureka, Willmott Dixon’s central research and development fund, the vest, which costs approximately £5,650, will first be used on the Cardiff West Community High School site. The company will then demonstrate Eksovest at other sites across the country before introducing as standard depending on how the trials perform.

In Cardiff, the vest will be used to assist those working at the Cardiff West Community High School, which holds the “Ultra Site” status from the CCS (Considerate Constructors

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Menai Science Park

Scheme). The site was chosen to trial the newly developed technology due to the range of technical activities required to complete the build.

Neal Stephens, managing director for Willmott Dixon Wales and South West, says: “Innovation is in our DNA and this could revolutionise the ability to lift items and perform repetitive overhead tasks. The wellbeing of our people and supply chain is always our number one priority and the more we can use technology to support this, the better.

“The Eksovest technology should lead to teams on site feeling less exerted, meaning improved wellbeing and productivity.

This investment also demonstrates the development of our new Eureka fund in supporting technology and innovation that will drive change in our construction industry into the 21st century.”

Willmott Dixon’s research and development investment programme Eureka takes applications and funds ideas from employees.

Launched in May 2018, the initiative provides a platform for Willmott Dixon employees to put forward concepts in an attempt take the company, it’s supply chain and the industry forward.

“We all want to work for a company that’s progressive, innovative and fast-moving. A place that does things differently. Eureka provides a tool and a mechanism for our people to help us be that company,” says Willmott Dixon’s, product improvement and innovation manager, Steve Cook.

There’s no budgetary cap on ideas the business may fund during the programme’s quarterly funding rounds, and no specific amount set aside.

Employees fill out an application form defining the problem they’re looking to solve, the factors that result in this problem, and why it’s worth solving. The application is then sent to relevant stakeholders and checked to see that doesn’t overlap with other similar initiatives, before being submitted to Willmott Dixon’s board for approval.

The business will give people resources, tools and time away from their traditional roles in order to develop their idea through to delivery. Since the programme’s launch, 12 applications have been approved with research

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We all want to work for a company that’s progressive, innovative and fast-moving. A place that does things differently.

and development currently underway The Eksovest, for example, was discovered by design manager Chris Townsend on a trip to the US. The Eksovest began its companywide journey at Willmott Dixon’s Cardiff office, before being opened up to trials across England and Wales in order to better understand the benefits of it for the business and partners.

Townsend is also currently researching the benefits and opportunities a bricklaying robot could offer the industry.

Drones are often cited as the future of the construction industry. Cook said: “As an industry at the moment, despite reports being issued, we haven’t really understood drones and how they can benefit our workflow at various stages.”

Willmott Dixon is also currently looking at technology to solve a major problem in the industry caused by service strikes, when they hit the mains of electricity, water or gas, a serious health and safety issue that can lead to significant costs and disruptions to communities.

Cook said: “At the moment we undertake many physical surveys and obtain historical records from utilities companies to identify known services and drainage runs, all of that is then coordinated and plotted on a drawing.

Despite having robust procedures in place, there is always the residual risk that information can be overlooked and human error can be a factor.

“We’re looking at taking that 2D drawing and bringing it into a 3D BIM, 3D plotting the services on a 3D model which enables us to then set exclusion zones through geo-fencing, and then having an excavator with a GPS sensor in it linked to the model and a sensor on the bucket of a digger and an alarm in the cab. If you’re in the digger and you move the bucket into a zone where a service is, a warning sound will go off.”

Willmott Dixon’s hope is that Eureka will set the firm apart and increase the speed of adoption of ideas.

Cook says: “Construction will change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 80.’’ n

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Flying high Zip-Clip has developed new products and processes to win business all around the world, as Peter Jackson reports

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id-Wales manufacturer Zip-Clip has secured more than £5m pounds in extra business after focusing on exporting.

The company, which manufactures suspension systems for electrical, mechanical, heating and ventilation industries at its premises in Welshpool, Powys had been thriving by supplying the UK construction market in the years after it started trading in 2004.

But when the financial crisis and global recession hit, Zip-Clip suffered a 30% drop in orders so it started to look overseas for business.

That was a strategic decision that paid dividends and Zip-Clip now exports to more than 50 customers in 30 different countries including in America, India, the Middle East and Europe, with Australia and New Zealand forming its largest markets.

Zip-Clip has established Zip-Clip PTY in Melbourne Australia with its own designated warehouse and offices in the suburb of Thomastown. This allows Zip-Clip to service its customer needs with reduced delivery times to its end users in the Australian and New Zealand markets.

Exports now account for 40% of Zip-Clip’s annual turnover of around £6m and the company aims to increase that proportion to 60% by 2020 through new export contracts.

The company will be involved in several highprofile projects including the FIFA World Cup 2022 stadiums being constructed in Qatar.

This follows landmark architectural projects and its products can be found in such as structures as Sky Dubai, Ferrari World, the American Embassy, as well as Amazon distribution centres.

Chief executive Steve Goldsworthy says: “The results of focusing on exports have been marvellous. We’ve gone from being a domestic business to a global player and this has helped to grow the business significantly.”

The business has seen impressive growth in

recent years, with five new employees joining in the firm in 2019 alone, bringing its headcount up to around 45 staff. The business currently has a forward order book of five months.

Zip-Clip credits Welsh Government support for much of its export growth, with its help in identifying international markets and key contacts in new territories.

Goldsworthy adds: “We have been working with Welsh Government on export opportunities since 2009, after approaching them for support following the recession. I recently calculated that we have done £5m in extra business as a direct result of their support programmes.

“Their export support helped us research a number of export markets and also helped us find the right people to speak with and even helped us to visit these markets. This support has been invaluable and is available to all Welsh firms seeking new export business. I would encourage other SMEs to contact them for further support.”

Exports will continue to play a key role in Zip-Clip’s growth. A royal visit from a Qatari prince to their Welshpool HQ in 2018 helped the company land a contract in the kingdom, with Goldsworthy set to visit Qatar, Kuwait

and Dubai this year to pursue further export opportunities. Visits to Singapore and Japan are also planned for the second half of 2019 to promote Zip-Clip’s seismic product for use in areas prone to earthquakes. The seismic product is also becoming more important in Europe, particularly in southern Italy.

The Qatar contract was an exclusive deal with HBA Private Trading & Contracting for the distribution of the Zip-Clip range throughout Qatar. The deal with His Highness Sheikh Hamad Ahmed SJ Al Thani’s company, HBA Private Trading & Contracting was the result of five years of hard work from Zip-Clip which began in 2014 when the firm attended a Welsh Government led trade mission to Qatar.

Thanks to this mission, Zip-Clip had its products approved by the Arab Engineering Bureau for use in the Msheireb Heritage Museum project.

Zip-Clip was given a brief to find a way of suspending projectors in a number of the new museums built in the cultural quarter that have traditional Qatari wicker ceilings. As nothing could be fixed to these ceilings the company had to design and develop a special system.

Further to the completion of this project, ZipClip was approached by HBA Private Trading & Contracting to distribute the Zip-Clip

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The results of focusing on exports have been marvellous. We’ve gone from being a domestic business to a global player and this has helped to grow the business significantly.

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products throughout Qatar.

August 2018 saw a delegation from HBA Private Trading & Contracting, including Sheikh Hamad Ahmed SJ Al Thani, visit Welshpool. This was followed this February by a Middle Eastern visit by Goldsworthy to HBA Private Trading & Contracting.

He says: “It is a pleasure to be in partnership with HBA Private Trading and Contracting.

Zip-Clip strive to work with only the elite companies in the market and it is a pleasure to be working with such an enthusiastic and driven business which adopts the same ethos as the rest of Zip-Clip’s global partners. With our recent appointment it allows Zip-Clip’s brand to grow and expand our global reach.’’

Welsh Government minister for International Relations Eluned Morgan, says: “This is great news for Zip-Clip and for Mid-Wales. It is fantastic to see innovative products, made in Wales, being used in Qatar and markets across the world. I am pleased that Welsh Government has been able to help Zip-Clip to grow its exports and I am determined to ensure that the Welsh Government continues to support Welsh companies such as Zip-Clip to export their goods and services.”

Welsh Government funding also enabled the firm to move into its new larger 25,000sq ft purpose-built premises in Welshpool in 2017, after outgrowing its original base in an old Marks & Spencer tie factory. This allowed it to take on larger projects and contracts such as a deal with French firm Legrand, a global building infrastructure specialist and the world’s

largest in cable management.

In April 2018 Zip-Clip opened a 6,000 square foot expansion to help manage its booming export sales. Its new extension provide an additional 800 pallet positions, increasing storage to enable it to stock larger levels of raw and finished material. The expansion at its site at Offa’s Dyke Business Park was constructed at a cost of £375,000 by the Welsh Government and is now leased to Zip-Clip.

Zip-Clip managing director, Matthew Clay-Michael said the extension would further emphasise the company’s ability to attract talent and expertise with a keen eye on developing its research and development opportunities.

Innovation lies at the heart of Zip-Clip’s success.

Goldsworthy says: “Our focus is innovation and educating the market to understand the benefits of using wire. We’re determined not to be thought of as a ‘me-too’ company. The Welsh Government has recognised this, and taken the time to understand and support us.”

“Innovation is a requirement of the business,’ says Clay-Michael. “We had some visitors from Italy yesterday who’re potential clients and what really clinched the deal with them was that we were able to show them innovations that we have coming through. Customers now, particularly the large corporations, don’t just want to see the products you have currently, they want to work with you closely and know that, as we move forward, there are new products coming through as well.’’

Simple and speedy solutions Zip-Clip has pioneered highspecification suspension systems for use in electrical, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems. Its products based on a locking system - are designed for simple and speedy installation.

Zip-Clip wire rope systems can be utilised for: hanging systems, bracing systems, securing and catenaries.

Suspensions are typically used within the construction industry where they’re used as an equivalent to systems such as threaded rod.

Sectors within the construction industry where Zip-Clip supports are used include: • Retail – shopping centres and cinemas; • Commercial – hotels, office fit outs; • Industrial – factories; • Education – schools and universities; • Food processing; • Medical – hospitals.

Within these sectors Zip-Clip is typically used for: • Electrical containment installations; • Mechanical containment installations; • Heating ventilation & air conditioning installations; • Seismic bracing; • Acoustic ceilings.

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Zip-Clip currently has a patent application for a new product that it has developed due to legislation changes.

“We needed to create a solution and the technical team looked at it came up with a way in which we can bring a product to market that would do the job that we required,’’ says Clay-Michael.

“Since we moved in here over the last two years we have developed our own internal technical team which is headed up by our previous sales and technical sales manager and his role is developing R&D and we have taken on two more people, one of whom has a huge knowledge in 3D modelling and used to work in architectural companies and we have another member who is a die-casting metals specialist.

Between the three of them they are great at new product development and new concepts.

“It’s very much left to them, they show us what they are looking at and we then look at the manufacturing process and the costings, because it’s great coming up with a product only so long as you can sell it and the customer is willing to pay for it.’’

However, innovation is not the sole preserve of the R&D team.

“Ideas can come from anywhere,’’ adds ClayMichael. “They can come from our technical guys on the road who might come up with a solution for a project on site. Most of the products in our list have come from a solution arrived at on site. An engineer might come to us and say he needs to suspend a heating ventilation system but that it cannot go straight above for some reason, so it’s then a question of creating a solution for them on site. Once we have done that, we often realise we can duplicate that method for other sites and it becomes one of our standard products. A lot of the time a lot of the products we develop

and a lot of the solutions we come up with has been a matter of re-using a product that we currently have but using it differently. A product gets used in so many different guises.’’

Whatever the way in which a new product is devised, the company is always careful to ensure it protects its IP and takes out a patent.

But, innovation is not only a question of new products and technologies, it’s also about changes to procedures and processes.

Clay-Michael explains: “Throughout our production facility we are very much heavily involved with automating and improving production flows. All the machines that we have here are unique, they’re not machines you can buy on the market. We work closely with a manufacturer and design our machines with them, it’s very much a learning experience with them as well and we work closely with them and we have been for about 10 years.’’

Innovation is also about people.

“We are an Investors in People company and we have had that standard for seven to eight years,’’ says Clay-Michael. “We have been able to attract good people and Welshpool is an area with quite a few automation companies and we have been able to attract very high calibre people.

“Our training is generally in-house because our products are so specialised and they’re probably only about four companies that do what we do, so it’s quite a niche area. Staff in production will follow a three-month training programme before joining our technical team and then there is continual growth for them and the RND team will do the training with them. We have very good staff retention, we have staff who have been here for about 11 years. We used to work closely with Cardiff University and their engineering department and more recently we have been working closely also with Bristol University because they have an extremely good seismic table.’’

Innovation enabled Zip-Clip to enjoy export success, but, in turn, exporting has driven further innovation.

Clay-Michael says: “Exporting does make for a better and more innovative business because each country has its own methods and its own construction processes and their use of materials is a bit different. The seismic system itself would not have happened and we would not have created that revenue stream if we were not exporting.’’ n

Leading the way in design The new US Embassy, built on a five-acre site at Nine Elms in southwest London was designed by award winning US architects Kieran Timberlake following a competition run by the US State Department.

Within this large crystalline cube building, all of the suspended systems needed to meet the exacting US building standards. Given that all its products are fully certified by SMACNA (Sheet Metal & Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association) ZipLock was chosen.

By meeting these stringent requirements, the Zip-Clip system was used for all building services, and the company was able to offer a full and detailed technical submission as well as onsite testing and product training.

The building represents a new departure in embassy design. The intention is to emphasise the role of architecture in international diplomacy. And it demonstrates the potential for the Zip-Clip system in situations where compliance with various international standards is a prerequisite.

BBC TV CENTRE The BBC Television Centre in west London was the much-loved home of BBC Television from 1960 to 2013.

In 2014 the site was acquired by developers Stanhope who embarked on a £200m overhaul of the grade IIlisted building. The design masterplan included 1,000 new homes together with leisure facilities, and brand new studio and office spaces for the creative industries.

In this stylish environment, ZipClip’s aesthetics were a match for the building’s design ambitions.

Given the security measures in place at this London landmark, all ZipClip components were supplied in transparent packaging. And the ease of assembly helped the contractors to meet the tight time-scales.

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Looking ahead Our Construction Innovation Index celebrates companies that embrace change, which is vital to prosperity, says Peter Jackson

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nnovation is crucial to the health of any economy and of society.

It’s the ingredient, above all others, which helps to improve productivity and so prosperity.

A classic example which demonstrates the truth of this dates back to the early decades of the last century when the development of assembly line production and its application to the mass production of cars reduced the time to produce the Model T Ford by 68% over six years. This reduced its cost by 62%, allowing middle-class families to afford what had once been a luxury. This innovation in process changed the world.

In the second half of that century, in the US, labour productivity and remuneration in the forms of wages and benefits increased at a rate of about 2% a year, so that real hourly compensation increased from an average US$9.88 per hour in 1947 to US$35.44 per hour today. These advances in real wealth and living standards were enabled by innovations that have made businesses and people more productive.

For a long time it was the US that led the field in innovation, but that position has now been taken by Germany. In the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Competitiveness Report, Germany came top as the world’s most innovative economy, with a score of 87.5 out of 100, with the US in

second place with a score of 86.5. The UK was seventh with a score of 79.2 According to the report, the speed at which countries can adopt new ideas, methods and products will give them a competitive edge as the Fourth Industrial Revolution continues apace.

Of course, extolling the benefits of innovation is like being in favour of motherhood and apple pie – everybody’s for it and nobody’s against it. Doing it, though, is another matter, it’s not easy, as we can see from the UK’s long-standing struggle to improve its economic productivity.

Too many businesses have too narrow a definition of innovation. It’s not only a question of the sexy stuff, of inventing or developing new technology. Some of the most important and value-adding innovations can involve changes to processes or even culture, as our Innovation Index so amply demonstrates.

The management consultants McKinsey worked with the London School of Economics to look at the impact of management innovation on productivity. In a study of 700 manufacturing companies in the UK, France, Germany and the US, they found a clear link between the companies that enjoyed the highest productivity, and those that used best practice techniques in their operations management,

performance management, and talent.

But, whatever kind of innovation we are talking about, its importance to construction is perhaps greater than to any other sector.

This is because it has been the slowest to innovate and because it is of such huge importance to the UK economy.

In its recent report: The Economic Footprint of Housebuilding in England and Wales, Lichfields points out that last year some £12bn was invested in the housebuilding industry in England and Wales. Of this £11.7bn was spent on suppliers, of which 90% was spent in the UK. The sector generates £38bn of economic output each year, supporting nearly 698,000 jobs and, among these are 4,300 apprentices, 525 graduates and 2,900 other trainees. It paid £2.7bn in various taxes, created £4.2bn of affordable housing and spent £841m on infrastructure, including £122m on new and improved schools. That all amounts to quite an impact.

That is why it is so heartening to see Wales setting the pace. As this Construction Innovation index so convincingly demonstrates, the country is not only pioneering new products and technologies, it’s showing how much can achieved by partnership. This is not just partnership between businesses but also between industry and academia and between industry and government. n

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These are all companies that stand out from an already distinguished crowd of true innovators and they are – literally – helping to build the Wales of the future.

We salute them.