Gulf Construction Online - Aluminium expert aims for excellence

Al Abbar Group

Al Abbar's team of 40 Auto CAD draftsman and structural engineers.

Aluminium expert aims for excellence

Al Abbar Aluminium has completed more than 450 projects and continues to clinch with major contracts in the region.

01 October 2003

With more than 450 projects behind it in Dubai and Sharjah alone, Al Abbar Aluminium is certainly no stranger to the construction boom in the UAE.

So much so that the division's general manager Jean Francois Audin admits that it is only during rare dips in project activity in Dubai that Al Abbar Aluminium has looked to supply projects in neighbouring Qatar, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.

And the spate of new, fast-track projects being developed in Dubai is expected to continue for the next five to six years, Audin believes, although investors' budgets are, likely to shrink.

Established in 1987, Al Abbar Aluminium is one of the leading architectural aluminium curtain-wall, windows and cladding companies in the Middle East, offering a complete design, manufacturing and installation service for a comprehensive range of aluminium glazing systems and associated products.

With 1,500 employees, Al Abbar Aluminium is very much a leading player in the supply of such systems to prestigious projects in Dubai, though it is through a combination of factors that it has been able to reach this elevated status.

''Our key strengths include a flexibility of design, which is tailor-made to the architects; a highly-skilled and experienced team of structural engineers and designers; and very good manufacturing capabilities,'' says Audin. Indeed, the company is an innovator as well as a manufacturer.

''Engineering expertise is the basis of any success. We are selling systems, not just products and if our designs are not approved our machinery lies idle,'' he says.

He is keen to point out the close relationship between Al Abbar Aluminium, architects and consultants, from the submission of concept drawings to the consultant, through a full test mock-up in a laboratory with subcontractors and the release of fabrication drawings to the Al Abbar factory following successful testing of procured materials.

Design manager Dean Cordon, who heads a team of 40 AutoCAD draftsmen and structural engineers who design systems to suit particular building applications - in effect, turning client dreams into reality - agrees.

''Clients are today generally more technically-minded and more knowledgeable about our products and services, and they also want fast, efficient construction,'' he says, citing the recently-completed 21st Century Tower, for which Al Abbar won the design project only in February last year.

To provide the highly specialised products required for leading projects, Al Abbar Aluminium says it has designed and engineered a new unitised curtain walling system incorporating drain joint pressure equalisation technology. With this system, panel fabrication and assembly is completed in the factory, thus ensuring rapid installation as the panels are transported to site, craned into position and bolted back to the main building structure.

The units are designed to cater to building structure tolerances, vertical, lateral and seismic movement, wind loading, thermal cycling, air infiltration and water penetration. The system is manufactured to incorporate aluminium, glass, granite and insulation materials as a total module, and each spans floor-to-floor and mullion-to-mullion, according to the company. The units are machined and glazed in an environment-controlled factory to ensure the highest quality of the final product, and installation time and manpower is also significantly reduced.

Quality is an essential ingredient to a product's success and tough controls are in place to minimise the amount of rejection on the project site, says Audin.

''We always have a team on site, led by a project manager and typically five or six supervisors to oversee material installation, a process which is subject to harsh QA/QC controls by the client, consultant and architect, though if we have done our work properly in the factory, then this stage is not normally a problem,'' he adds.

'This is perhaps in part thanks to a major programme undertaken by Al Abbar Aluminium in the last two years to enforce strict QA/QC procedures into the company's processes.

Despite Al Abbar Aluminium's market leading position and the fact that demand for aluminium products remains generally high, Audin is wary of the fierce nature of the competition. In a sector where you must be the most cost-effective, fastest and of the highest quality, margins are low.

''To overcome some of these demands we tend to concentrate on larger, more prestigious projects as our size means we cannot be competitive on smaller projects,'' he stresses, adding that tight margins also necessitate continually improved efficiencies, manufacturing capabilities and staff expertise. Expertise gained on massive projects such as the Burj Al Arab, Dubai International Airport, Emirates Tower, the Fairmont Hotel and Al Moosa Tower looks set to come in useful.

With excellent manufacturing capabilities already in place - Al Abbar has, some of the most modern CNC equipment - Audin remains aware of new machinery available in the market.
In doing so, he hopes to meet head-on the challenges of the next five years, which he says include meeting the demands of fast track projects where lead time is at a minimum and meeting the training needs of a growing workforce.

''I'd like to think that in five years, we'll have a higher turnover and will be at the top of technological innovation in the aluminium industry. How we develop systems to cope with the demands of some of the world's most complex construction projects taking place in Dubai will be crucial to our future,'' he concludes.