Customised or standard?
ESC broke the mould by supplying clients with the exact lengths that they required rather than just standard six metre and 12 metre. General manager Bruce Colson says this ensures there is no wastage, so there are savings for the client.
The cold formed design can place the thicker material in the area that required it and thinner material in less critical areas, saving steel tonnage and money, he says.
However, while ESC started out with 100% custom-designed sheet piles for project-specific tasks, over the years it has moved more to its catalogue-standard sheet piles in order to cater to the large general market. It has also created a range of sheet piles that it is offering to the temporary sheet pile market.
"We continue to look at custom-designed sheet piles if the project shows that there is a real possibility to be re-designed. However, increasingly we are sticking more to the catalogue profiles to cater for the increased demand and shorter delivery times required by clients. This also helps productivity and lets the customer choose off-the-shelf sheet piles that can be turned out very quickly."
As well as its Malaysian production facilities, ESC has commissioned one factory in China and expects to have another one or two there by the end of next year. New factories in Abu Dhabi and St Petersburg will be fully operational in the first quarter of 2008 and ESC expects to have a global output of almost 200,000 tonnes by the end of 2008.
"With the vast amount of port expansions in China, Vietnam and the Middle East among others, we expect to be very busy for quite some time," says Mr Colson. "With the size of structures that are being proposed around the world, such as the widening and deepening of the Panama Canal, and the general large increase in shipping reliance around the world, we would expect people to look at the options."
