The ALIMATS® Story: How a Construction Site Frustration Led to Innovation
We’re all for modern methods of construction. We’ll observe someone on site going about their tasks using conventional technology and come up with a safer, faster, cheaper and greener way of doing it. It’s easy to stick with the same way of doing something until you’re introduced to new technologies and innovations. But at Brilliant Ideas, that’s exactly what we do. We invent and manufacture unique products and systems for people who work on construction sites.
And we go the whole hog. All of our innovations are patented, tried and tested in real-world conditions, and adopted by most of the UK’s top fifty construction companies, and multiple end users.
Our Managing Director, Dan Westgate explains our approach to new product development.
Who’s the name behind the innovations?
Our CEO, Chris Massey. He has an incredible efficiency for spotting an unmet need on construction sites – and meeting it with a new invention or modern-day alternative. I remember the two of us having a spur-of-the-moment get together at the motorway services to discuss our HALF-LOADER® spreader module. We sketched the idea on a serviette, swiftly moved it into R & D and within 12-months launched it on the open market as a hire and sale option.
In recognition of Chris’s commitment to innovation, Brilliant Ideas was named IPA Innovation Champion 2023 at the British Construction Industry Awards, a phenomenal achievement when you consider we were up against Balfour Beatty Vinci, Sellafield and a joint venture between Alice Technologies, Skanska, Costain and Strabag.
What gives us our market advantage?
What helps massively is Chris’s diverse expertise in the manufacturing process whether that’s extrusion, injection moulding or blow moulding – he understands how something should be made. Being a successful small enterprise is also an undeniable advantage because it gives us the freedom to side-step internal bureaucracy and rigid protocols that can come with bigger firms, empowering us to enter the market much more quickly. But it’s not just about developing new innovations – we’re always deliberating how to evolve our existing systems to preserve their longevity.
What’s our approach to innovation?
Pragmatism! We fully embrace that not everything will work but we have an unwavering bravery to push boundaries, to develop multiple prototypes, engage in independent testing and analysis before trialling in real world conditions. At the last count we own 34 patents – so we’re not afraid to speculate to accumulate which is why our R & D investment is upwards of £500k. Our products and systems are modular, based on clever thinking and simple designs. Their worldwide application has already enabled our expansion into Qatar, Greece, Iceland, Belgium, Spain, Angola, Saudi Arabia and Holland.
Which construction innovation are we best known for?
Right now it’s ALIMATS® – our interlocking aluminium load spreader mats for cranes and powered access which you’ll see on sites all over the UK. But then there’s our brilliant inflatable safety net recovery system, levelling shims, temporary safety hole covers, hollowcore perimeter shuttering, instant pipe shuttering and stadium solutions. They are all on site doing their thing.
Where did the idea for ALIMATS® come from?
We came up with the idea of developing our own mat modules when the site team working for our sister company Beresford’s experienced daily frustration working with steel crane mats. Steel is strong but it’s also heavy so standing around waiting for a crane to set them up was adding extra time and cost to projects. As there wasn’t a suitable alternative on the market, we developed our own.
The development challenge was finding a material that was strong and resistant to bending, light enough to be picked up by hand and certifiable after repeated use. Our research steered us in the direction of an extruded Aluminium truss design. By testing multiple profiles our inspiration came from how plastic companies make hollow PVC window ledges, reducing weight but retaining strength – a design we were confident would give us a market advantage. We launched the first ALIMATS® module in 2007 taking inspiration for its name after the silver metal it’s manufactured from.
How important is the crane mat material?
Hugely important! Perhaps what baffles us most is why large corners of the construction industry are still ignoring the material properties when specifying mats. Most competing mat manufacturers only focus on promoting the strength of crane mats, and not stiffness. You might question why this is important, but we believe the industry is being completely misled by crane mat manufacturers quoting unrealistic Safe Working Loads. The impact is potentially aborted crane lifts when the temporary works engineer realises the set of plastic mats sat under the crane aren’t fit for purpose because they are not stiff enough and bend.
We’ve continually evolved ALIMATS® to become a leading brand based on its technology. Our biggest challenge now is educating the industry on crane mat materials and the critical bearing they have on safety and performance.
Name some of the projects where ALIMATS® have been used?
Under temporary cabins for a concert at Hyde Park, propping systems in the construction of nuclear submarines, rescue equipment during the maintenance of a large attenuation tank, over a suspended floor for large track movers within a nuclear facility, on underground train stations, remote Scottish windfarms and as a 320m long access road on private ground. Because ALIMATS® are moveable by hand they are easy to manoeuvre into some of the most challenging spaces.
What are some of the challenges in developing new innovations in construction?
Educating the market that our niche products fix common problems. Take Stacker Packers which is the brand name for our levelling shims. Not everyone understands their structural benefits because they are made of plastic. When shims have to be load bearing the industry ‘go to’ solution is steel because they have a very high compressive strength. But our plastic system is load bearing too in different sizes and configurations. Stackers have been used on magnificent structures including Everton’s Bramley Moore stadium, Manchester’s Co-op Live, and La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
Embracing new technology can be a slow process due to resistance rooted in unfamiliarity, a lack of understanding, and concerns about long-term durability.
Which materials do we use in our product development?
If we take Stackers as an example, we put a lot of thought into the material selection, a virgin high impact polystyrene with UV stabilisers to overcome the yellowing and brittleness linked with prolonged exposure to UV rays, and critical to performance. Not all plastic shims on the market are load bearing so we would encourage buyers to ask questions about their structural integrity with their supplier. Stackers have this interlocking protrusion to help keep the load stack stable, and a side profile interlock to create larger load areas.
All of our innovations are built on a clever but simple design and made from recycled lightweight materials that are reuseable. Aside from our plastic products, ALIMATS® modules are made from a recycled low carbon Aluminium billet with CO2 per-life-cycle stage analysis.
Who uses our innovations?
Main contractors and end users have rapidly adopted and deployed our inventions as an alternative system to the traditional, including a good chunk of the top 50 UK construction companies. Pretty much every day new customers are opening trading accounts with us.
