'Industrialized' production of steel mesh

Since this year, companies in Belgium (and the Netherlands) have been able to efficiently use roll-up reinforcement mats for their projects. Becosteel has in fact acquired the exclusive rights to BAMTEC® Reinforcement Technology and is making grateful use of i-Theses' PlanDesk software for far-reaching automation from the quotation stage to invoicing. Including production planning and machine control.

Becosteel is a sister company of Becoton, but operates completely independently and is also located at its own site in Bornem (B). "We have been given the opportunity to promote BAMTEC® Reinforcement Technology exclusively on the Belgian market," says Peter Claes, Becosteel's business manager. "BAMTEC® is originally a Swiss company that has been developing machines for the production of fully customized and roll-manufactured steel mats incorporating all the desired properties since 1998. In the steel mats we can provide additional reinforcement and take into account recesses for sewer pipes, a stairwell or any obstacle. Rods with diameters from 8 to 20 millimeters and in lengths ranging from 1.65 to 15 meters can be processed. We offer an alternative to classic reinforcement for almost every plan and application. Based on the data provided by the architect or structural engineer, reinforced concrete floors are calculated directly in a CAD program."

Far-reaching automation

BAMTEC®'s technology is used worldwide and provides significant savings. "It reduces construction time by at least 50% and by producing from coils we save up to 20% in material," says Claes. Machine control is done entirely from the ERP system. "Like our sister company Becoton, we use PlanDesk. i-Theses however, has configured it completely to Becosteel standards. In fact, PlanDesk is the heart of our company, where we take care of all the business. From preparing the quotation and delivery notes to invoicing. And the PXML file generated by the software automatically controls our machine. So everything happens in one and the same (user-friendly) program. This far-reaching automation means that we can achieve a very high production capacity with a very limited club of people."