Copiam Group, supplier of industrial semi-finished products and structural building solutions from steel, concrete or a combination of both, presents its vision on a new way of cooperation in the construction value chain at Building Holland. For years, the potential benefits of integral cooperation between various disciplines has been recognized and discussed. With regards to supply, Copiam Group now moves from words to deeds. Steel and concrete have literally been placed under a single roof in its manufacturing location in Zutphen measuring 30.000 m2. Based on the Copiam Group brands Reesink Staal, Slimline and KanaalBreedPlaat, customers can choose to combine worked steel and concrete building parts with a broad range of services to their liking. That results in more efficient processes, improved coordination between building parts, less transport movements and shorter lead times. This allows an initial product supply to evolve into an integral partnership over time. An appealing thought, for example for Plusleven, developers of innovative sustainable flexible and modular residential concepts. Roy Venekamp, transition manager and one of the Plusleven partners: “In Copiam Group, we’ve found a strategic partner that proactively suggests potential improvements and operates as an extension to our organization. The sustainable and integral Slimline and KanaalBreedPlaat structural floor systems that allow a dry construction process with prefabricated elements and the integral approach to steel structures triggered our initial discussions. Today, Copiam Group also manages the procurement and inventory management of the Plusleven industrial building parts they don’t manufacture themselves. That saves us a lot of time and management.” During Building Holland, from 9 to 11 April in Amsterdam RAI, the partnership was further introduced.

Hans Hilbrands, managing director at Copiam Group, explains the basis for the founding of the company: “Combining the historically often separate worlds of ‘steel’ and ‘concrete’ is indicative for Copiam Group goal: creating structural synergy together with our customers. With integral products, we lay the foundation for lower material use as well as lower energy consumption, less transport movements and efficient processes. Furthermore, our value-added services allow our role to vary as desired, from a basic steel length supplier to an integral partner which combines our products and sourced parts in a single inventory.”

To further illustrate the Copiam Group vision, he picks up a summary of the so-called Building Blocks. “Every product starts with steel trading lengths in a variety of shapes, such as beams, tubular steel and bar steel; for many of our customers, these are interesting products due to the high quality, our expansive stock and resulting short delivery times.” The next part of the graphic shows many different processing options, which include cutting, drilling, punching, arcing, blasting and priming. Hilbrands points out a specific processing option; “As you can see, adding concrete is also one of the possibilities; that’s a special feature for one and the same manufacturing location.”

A fitting example of the basis in steel, steel processing and adding concrete is the Slimline structural floor system. The prefabricated floor elements consist of IPE beams with opening for building services that are poured in a concrete ceiling plate. The final section of Building Blocks adds a wide range of different services, such as inventory & management, digital machine control, sourcing of purchased parts and transportation. “This way, we can together design the desired form of collaboration with the maximum added value for the customer”, according to Hilbrands.

The partnership with Plusleven was established just as described. Initially, Plusleven was looking for hybrid integral steel structures and a sustainable flooring solution. Copiam Group’s hollow floor systems, Slimline and KanaalBreedPlaat, reduce both the use of raw materials and the construction time thanks to the prefabricated elements. Both offer options for energy efficient climate control, such as ceiling cooling and underfloor heating, and the industrial integration of a building services infrastructure. After several meeting about the structural floor systems, Plusleven voiced its wish to work with an integral strategic partner that’s willing to do more than just supply its own products. Roy Venekamp from Plusleven adds: “Thanks to our collaboration, we’re able to focus our attention entirely on advice, control and supervision of our projects. We trust Copiam Group for the overview and the coordination of production, ordering and delivery of different integral building parts.”

“In our opinion, this type of integral strategic collaboration can be the basis for the construction value chain of the future. We’re looking forward to realizing the planned projects together with the other Plusleven partners!”, conclude Hilbrands and Venekamp in unison. Would you like to know more or get further acquainted? Contact Copiam Group by phone (+31 (0)575-599 601) or e-mail (info@copiam.group).