Wrightstyle has become the only UK steel glazing system specialist to provide a complete design, fabrication and installation service, offering a turnkey solution and a quality guarantee at each stage of the contract process.
The company, which supplies glazing systems, fabricated products and fire-resistant glass worldwide, can now offer its UK customers a cost-efficient service that includes a full design and fabrication service at the company’s own specialist facilities – and an installation service using only Wrightstyle-accredited personnel.
This gives subcontractors, contractors and specifiers the option for single sourcing a steel glazing contract, often for complex design applications, to just one company – negating the need for ordering from multiple supply chains, and then using further sub-contractors to fabricate and install the finished systems.
The company has appointed Chris Lainsbury as its contracts director, with responsibility for the management of all site activities. Chris, who has worked in the curtain walling and specialist glazed façade industry for over 25 years, brings a wealth of experience on all aspects of site activities, and his appointment reflects Wrightstyle’s continual commitment to total quality management of all its projects, including the training of accredited installers.
Wrightstyle is undertaking installer training programmes at its UK headquarters to ensure that it has a network of technically-advanced installers, trained by the same personnel that originally designed, tested and developed the systems.
Lee Coates, Wrightstyle’s technical director and leader of the in-house accredited training programme, said: “This approach to training means that installers have an absolutely clear understanding of how each of our systems is designed to operate, and how each internal or external system must be fitted to guarantee its optimum performance for any given situation, which could be fire, blast, ballistic, thermal or simply large span applications.”
Wrightstyle has long championed the case for governments to ensure compatibility between glass and framing elements in high-performance systems arguing that, in some cases, the components proposed may never have been tested as one unit to ensure compatibility. Most recently, the company took that case to the Middle East, where Abu Dhabi is introducing new building regulations.
Wrightstyle’s systems have all been compatibility tested as one unit, worldwide. For example, in the case of blast resistance, a recent 500kg of TNT-equivalent explosives were used in a successful lorry bomb test. This policy of continually testing all elements guarantees the system’s compatibility to perform, against fire, ballistic and explosive attack. The company has said publicly for some years that building regulations internationally should require proven compatibility, otherwise the integrity of the glazing system could be compromised.
The decision to offer subcontractors, contractors and specifiers the option of an installation service takes that guarantee-led approach one step further.
“It gives us a real advantage because, for the first time, we can put our company name behind each step in the design to installation process. In other words, it’s not just about compatibility as far as the system is concerned, it’s about a cost-effective and total-quality approach at every stage,” said Chris Lainsbury, contracts director.
“This gives us the ability to offer our customers a closed loop option. They no longer have to manage several different companies in the design, supply, fabrication and installation chain. We can handle all those specialist stages and my function is to ensure that we have an absolute focus on effective contract management and customer satisfaction,” he added.
Wrightstyle’s high-performance systems can be found worldwide – from Australasia to the Asia-Pacific regions and from the Middle East to South Africa and the US. The company’s range of external curtain walling, and internal screens and doors have been tested to meet EU, Far Eastern and US standards.
In the past year, the company has supplied products to a nationally-prestigious chapel in the US for fallen Marine Corps soldiers, to a FIFA World Cup stadium in South Africa, and the Dubai Metro system. Wrightstyle systems, nationally and internationally, can also be found in a variety of commercial, government, sports and retail applications.