32
NEW YEAR MESSAGES
John Cooper,
commercial
director,
Swisspacer UK
Paul Sullivan,
MD, Anglo
European Group
Although 2019 was a
challenging year for
many, we finished
on a positive note.
Despite the current political and
economic uncertainties, we’re confident 2020
will be a successful year for Swisspacer.
We predict areas of growth in the windows sector. Climate
change is a hot topic and high on the political agenda so we’re
expecting a boost in demand for thermally efficient windows.
Take-up of the ultra-energy efficient Passivhaus standard has also
been gathering pace as specifiers and developers strive to make
buildings as sustainable as possible. This is particularly good
news for Swisspacer as our leading spacer bar is specified in over
70% of Passivhaus windows and 97% of Passivhaus curtain wall
constructions.
Last year we announced a new direction for Swisspacer as we
launched an innovative range of solutions for glass. This is part
of a long-term strategy to diversify and give customers a wider
choice of premium products including canopies and balustrade
systems. We launched La Pensilina, a high performance,
cantilever glass canopy system at London Build in November
2019. Both La Pensilina and our balustrade systems are ideal for
the growing high-end residential market, and we’ve had great
feedback from fabricators, installers and specifiers.
On behalf of Swisspacer I’d like to wish all customers, suppliers
and partners a happy and prosperous 2020.
If I have a message for fabricators
this year, it’s that you have a choice.
A choice as to whether you want to
continue to buy-in reinforcements from your
systems company, or buy in a reinforcement manufactured and
tested to comply with the same standards from us, and for less.
We exist to give fabricators that choice. We manufacture anodised
steel reinforcements, independently tested to comply with BS6375-
1:2015 across a range of systems – with others being added this
year. And we can supply them, cut-to-size on lead times of as little
as three-days, to tie in with their production schedule.
There’s an initial saving from buying direct from us as the
manufacturer – it eliminates handling fees and cuts out costs. The
bigger savings, however, are delivered by eliminating wastage, and
freeing-up manpower. You don’t need someone stood there cutting
reinforcement bar length.
That adds up to deliver some very big savings. We have customers
who have cut their PVC-U window and door reinforcement costs by
up to £200,000 a year. If you’re operating on smaller scale buying
cut-to-size reinforcement direct delivers a minimum saving of
£10,000 a year and up.
What you also get is space back. You don’t have to allocate part of
your site to storage or to handle and cut bar-length. It comes in from
us cut-to-size on a pallet. It’s a massive advantage.
“at adds up to deliver some very
big savings. We have customers who
have cut their PVC-U window and
door reinforcement costs by up to
The market was challenging last year, what’s going to happen this
year is difficult to call.
If things are tougher, then understanding your overheads and
keeping a control on them could prove critical.
If the market is flying, those savings are going to add up
more quickly because you’re doing more volume. Either way it
puts margin onto your bottom line, without really having to do
anything.
We offer cut-to-size profile for all leading systems, with
independent testing demonstrating that everything we supply meets
and exceeds the key performance criteria set down by systems
companies themselves, across Rehau, Veka and Liniar.
We’re also currently running independent tests through
BuildCheck across others and will be able to offer additional
approvals early this year.
That really does change the playing field and the rules of the
game. We’re giving fabricators a choice that wasn’t there before.
www.ggpmag.com January 2020
£200,000 a year”
/www.ggpmag.com
