Supplier partnership and more volume

Ian Cocken, director of sales and marketing at Aluplast, explains what it’s bringing to this year’s FIT Show.

We’ve seen growth because a programme of continuous development has delivered some very exciting innovations, specifically developed for the UK and Irish markets.

Also, with high operating costs and low margins, UK systems companies have faced an existential crisis. This is something that’s driven the raft of price increases that we have seen since last June’s referendum and Brexit.

Brexit hasn’t made things any easier for Aluplast but our model is different. It’s built around supplier partnership and more volume. Greater economies of scale than are available in the UK, plus manufacture in a high-tech, lower cost environment, has allowed us to manage our own costs effectively.

Aluplast processes more than 150,000 tonnes of PVCU in Europe annually. That’s equivalent to 75% of the whole UK and Irish markets combined. With our worldwide customer base manufacturing more than 10 million windows per year, we have the scale to support an incredible level of investment.

That scale means that we’re able to pass on the savings that it delivers to our customers while delivering a new generation of products that place us and them, at the very forefront of global innovation in PVCU technologies.

That’s what’s driven our growth and it’s those innovations that we’re bringing to the FIT Show this May. We have some exceptionally exciting new product developments, which will be showcased for the first time at FIT.

This includes our new lift and slide patio door. It’s the first lift and slide door to be able to achieve the Passivhaus standard, with an ultra-energy efficient option achieving U-values as low as 0.65W/m2K. Capable of spanning huge apertures in just two panels, with a light-touch opening and closing mechanism, it delivers exceptional sightlines and massive sales opportunities.

It’s also available in our innovative aluskin aluminium external fascia option. We’ll be showcasing this alongside our new Ideal 4000 contemporary SquareLine casement window at this year’s show.

A leading-edge PVCU system in its own-right Ideal 4000, delivers great sightlines and is PAS24, Part Q and SBD compliant.

It, and our new lift and slide patio work seamlessly with aluskin to create a hybrid external aluminium-clad offer. This clip-and-fix technology is already proven on the continent. Enabling the manufacture of a PVCU/aluminium cross-over product, aluskin supports PVCU in exploiting opportunities in the growing aluminium sector, without major investment in specialist machinery.

Conversely, the Ideal 4000 achieves a WER A+ rating in either ‘standard’ PVCU or aluskin configurations, offering manufacturers of aluminium systems access to a highly energy efficient offering at a comparatively far lower cost.

This sits alongside Ideal 70 and Ideal 70 ecotech, both fully sculptured and WER A++ systems, developed specifically for the UK and Ireland.

As one of the very few systems houses anywhere to have the ability to co-extrude recycled PVCU and virgin material, ecotech is another innovation from Aluplast. This process isolates any recycled material in the inner walls, leaving a pristine external wall extruded from virgin compound. This means we can guarantee a high gloss virgin surface finish.

All of these products can also be combined with more than 27 foils offered by Aluplast, in addition to aluskin, delivering the flexibility for use in a wide variety of architectural applications from domestic replacement, to premium residential and commercial buildings.

Aluplast foils more than 1.2million metres of product each month in Europe. That means that we hold thousands of metres of coloured and woodgrain profiles in stock, including popular anthracite grey, black, cream, rosewood and golden oak. These are available for ex stock delivery within just days of orders.

We have made specific and significant investment in our UK operation. This includes a state-of-the-art UK distribution centre, customer service and technical support teams. This growing presence has allowed us to deliver higher levels of customer support, in addition to our market leading product offer.

Aluplast C42