Prefabricats Planas, industrial construction of unique design

Mateu Planas, founder of the company and father of the current Managing Director, Francesc Planas, started in 1939 the activity of the company, in its origins to the manufacture of small concrete elements such as beams, tubes, elements for garden, etc. The pace of growth of the company led to the transfer, in 1958, at existing facilities, within the same population.

Was not until the mid-1980s when the business of Prefabricats flat line went to industrial prefabrication, us says Francesc Planas: "from then on growth was constant, through years of 20 to 140 current workers"incorporating to manufacture a line of residential façade and large deposits.

In addition, the flexibility that characterizes the company allows them to adapt to the change, working in the innovation and research (r & d) continuous "to improve the quality of our services and at the same time provide a better service to the customer". In this regard, point for the next few months exit to the market of new innovative products, bearing in mind also that "our future supply will happen by offering many solutions in play". As well, and despite the current situation of the construction market, Francesc Planas said that "Although it has noticed a little, it seems something timely of lack of confidence." The industrial market has no reason to make it happen the same. "I am confident that by 2010 we uproot again."

Also, during the past year also made the construction of new offices and acquired new equipment that will allow them to give to the panels of facades finished innovators in the industrial world.

Precisely in this regard, Francesc flat notes that "have carried out projects of facades for the residential sector, commercial centres, schools or hotels has forced us to raise the requirements of design", which allows them to offer added value to his work for the industrial world. “

The facades of Diagonal Mar, Iberdrola headquarters are an example of flat Ark. Among the works carried out in 2007 are the technological park of the University of Girona (UdG), several institutes of secondary school (IES) or the extension of a detention facility. In the segment of industrial turn, more respondent product remains the small ship of less than 500 square metres and, secondly, that of more than 5,000 square metres. The projects carried out in 2007 include the industrial parks of Llinars and Gavà.

Flat is a company, which also works for the own promoter as the Builder or the end customer: "so far dominated the promoter but increasingly deal with the end user".

Also, and on the issue of the environmental criteria that are applied to the construction, flat says that, if well "there are already many architects changes in designs, there are still no concrete demands," but did begin to study the use of recycled in concrete products or lighten pesos in medians structures or system design panels of enclosure with thermal insulation, among others.

For the immediate future, in addition, the strategy through adapt to demand new products either making products to measure, a growing trend more to the rise in this sector, incorporating both improve the said products in order to provide solutions on site. In this sense, they claim that it aims to "adapt the company to a different from the usual cruise speed and vertical integration that allows us to provide a better service".

The structure has been exploited for its construction and covered in an old ship from production, maintaining constructive elements such as the lapping, beams and original plates, at the same time incorporating new elements such as prefabricated stairs or the pre-slabs of slabs. The space consists of a total of 900 square meters of which 600 have been added to the 300 square meters above. In addition, new facilities give scope for three meeting rooms including the training room.

A company with a vocation for service

The service the client is the premise that working in Prefabricats flat. His team, currently consisting of about 135 professionals in all departments (from the commercial to the production, through the technical box, installation or administration personnel), combines experience, youth, efficiency and rigour always thinking in the continued attention to the needs of the client. And seeking this satisfaction, since pages are "proud to maintain the spirit of family business, on the basis of our work with the direct contact with the client". The company assumes as well as its own project, which addresses from the outset, acting as the provider of the building blocks of precast concrete. That is why flat is today not only as a producer of prefabricated concrete but as a "capable of offering a comprehensive service from the initial stages of project design to final delivery". This implication, complete in the majority of the projects developed for clients, manifests itself not only in greater speed of execution of the works but also to an increase in their capacity of advising and development of new products and systems of production and construction.

Currently, the company has 100,000 square metres of facilities, of which about 15,000 are covered, and can reach a production of 180 cubic meters of concrete per day, which means 40,500 cubic metres per year.