I have seen the future…

Glass Times editor, Luke Wood, visits the stunning Reynaers Aluminium Campus in Duffel, Belgium and takes a glimpse into the future courtesy of the company’s state of the art ‘Avalon’ virtual reality technology.

I have been lucky enough to visit some impressive facilities over the years, but there are precious few in the same league as the Reynaers Campus in Duffel, Belgium.

At 283,000m², the Campus buildings are home not only to vast quantities of stock (the warehousing alone is roughly the equivalent to nine football fields), production and training centres, modern offices, stunning staff facilities and showrooms, they also encompass Reynaers’ technology centre.

One of the largest, privately owned operations in Europe, it gives Reynaers the ability to carry out wind, water and acoustic testing, cyclic and durability testing and also burglar resistance and impact testing.

This incredible breadth of resource reflects the scale of Reynaers global operations. Established by Jan Reynaers in 1965, it now has a presence in over 40 countries and employs 2,650 staff worldwide. It has, unsurprisingly, enjoyed strong growth over the years, more than doubling turnover since 2010, to 756million Euros in 2022.

The fact that an organisation of this size remains a family run business, is testament to the strength of its core values – to innovate, act responsibly, to give ‘the best of ourselves’ and to ‘feel, act and behave as family’.

It is also a company that is committed to sustainable growth and operations, as demonstrated by the Reynaers Act manifesto.

That includes the sourcing of low carbon raw materials, the development of sustainable buildings, the recycling – or ‘end of life’ optimisation – of the products involved in their construction and sustainable product design.

As John McComb, Reynaers UK technical and services director, revealed to me in a previous interview for Glass Times, sustainability is not just an integral part of product development, it’s the top priority for the business, especially in the commercial sector, where decisions are based on sustainability and carbon footprint.

It is for this reason that Reynaers has signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative, with plans to reduce direct emissions – company cars, trucks, lighting etc – by 46% by 2030, and indirect emissions (the carbon footprint of raw materials) by 47% in the same time period.

It may have a strong commercial focus but Reynaers’ route to market is actually split 50/50 between commercial and residential sectors.

This is a key point because all the stringent testing and performance that is typically required for commercial applications is ultimately reflected in the quality of product that is also presented to private homeowners.

That includes the huge amounts of R&D that goes into special commercial projects that can require an entirely bespoke solution to be created from scratch when the design requirements fall outside Reynaers’ ‘off the shelf’ product offer.

In fact, Reynaers has a ‘special operations’ team dedicated to such projects. According to the department’s Teodor Catagioiu, a façade specialist & project engineer, the level of work and expertise that goes into these custom solutions is akin to the level of development that goes into designing a Formula 1 car, versus a normal road going vehicle.

And, as with F1, the technology can eventually find its way into the mainstream production in due course.

That should come as a reassuring analogy for Reynaers customers, especially with stricter regulations for Part L coming down the line in 2025. Not that the company is taking the proposed requirements for 2025 lightly – according to John, the R&D department is focusing its product development drive on the Future Homes Standard.

The future

A particular highlight of the Reynaers’ Campus was, for me, the company’s in-house virtual reality facility.

The phrase ‘state of the art’ is one that’s applied to almost every press release I receive these days about a new factory or website, but in the case of Reynaers’ Avalon VR technology it is, for once, well deserved.

The fact that Avalon has been in use since 2017 demonstrates just how far ahead of the curve Reynaers is with its virtual reality offering.

VR has become far more accessible in recent years, typically across gaming platforms as it provides an exciting, immersive experience.

Avalon, however, is not a toy. Nor is it just a fancy sales gimmick designed to wow potential customers with a virtual demonstration of products. There are no headsets (although you do have to wear special glasses in order to see the images in 3D) and the Avalon ‘cave’ enables multiple users to experience the technology at the same time.

So, what does it do? Well, if you’re involved in a large-scale commercial project, it allows architects, specifiers and consultants to ‘explore’ a high definition, 3D rendering of that project at the design stage.

Different window, door and façade options can be uploaded in real time, which means a variety of designs and cost options can be visualised. You can interact (virtually) with the environment, view the building from the inside, outside and from any elevation or angle or look closely at the detail of Reynaers’ systems.

In short, it allows all stakeholders to visualise a project, or different variations of a project, spot potential snags, experiment with different solutions and collaborate at an early stage in order to avoid conflicts further down the line – saving a lot of time and money in the process.

And all that is very exciting but, in my mind, there’s scope for so much more in the future. Reynaers is already in the process of upgrading its software to deliver more realistic rendering of its products in a virtual environment.

For me though, it’s the potential for supercharging all of this with the introduction of the next generation processing power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and even the expansion of the Metaverse.

To be clear, Reynaers currently has no plans to do this…but imagine if all of its global offices were linked by identical virtual reality facilities, allowing colleagues and customers to interact in real time, solve design and testing challenges and even create new, bespoke systems and products virtually – all in a fraction of the time that is currently possible.

It’s an exciting glimpse into a possible future, one that could transform working practices in the commercial sector and the industry at large.

Reynaers in the UK

While I would highly recommend a trip to the Reynaers Campus, Reynaers Aluminium UK also offers customers a wealth of support closer to home.

Based in Birmingham, the multi-million pound UK HQ has recently been upgraded with a major extension project to support future growth in the market and increase product availability.

It also boasts a ‘Knowledge Centre’ that offers engineering support and training and is home to the Reynaers UK technical and consultancy teams that offer full project and product support in addition to consultation services for commercial developers and architects.