SA Affordable Housing March / April 2018 // Issue: 69 | Page 14

Matpro provides Site Based Readymix Solutions, driven by technology.
ADVERTORIAL- COVER STORY

Matpro mixing it up

Matpro provides Site Based Readymix Solutions, driven by technology.
By Matpro | Photos by Matpro

A

site batch plant supplies a construction site with mortar, plaster and concrete of any required strength. The idea of a site based readymix solution was conceived when Attie Brink, a chemical engineer who studied at the University of Stellenbosch, was working in the readymix industry in 2006.
At the end of 2007 Brink accepted a position at Batchman Software Systems, to work with Adie Adendorff, to take the idea of a site based readymix solution further with the backing of Adendorff’ s software, Batchman. In 2009 they discovered the Dieci range of machines which included a self-loading concrete truck mixer.
Dieci South Africa was running a prototype site based solution at a project in Melkbosstrand. They subsequently moved their batch plant and Dieci concrete truck mixers to a project in Steenberg and approached Batchman for the automation of the plant. When Brink and Adendorff saw what the Dieci concrete truck mixers were capable of and the efficiencies of the machine compared to traditional readymix trucks, they approached Dieci South Africa to work together to develop a site based readymix solution that included a key element – the Dieci self-loading concrete truck mixer.
Matpro CC was then established to market and facilitate this new concept. The idea was to rent these solutions to property developers and building contractors on a fee per cubic metre( m 3) of product mixed. In January 2010 they started to operate on Group Five’ s Liberty Promenade project to supply the mortar and plaster over a nine-month period. This was Matpro’ s first project and set them firmly on the road to success.
In August 2010 Brink visited Zambia where he met Naresh Chavda and discovered a huge opportunity in Zambia’ s copper mines to sell Dieci equipment and concrete batch plants to Matpro Solutions Solwezi( MSS). Matpro helped MSS establish a site based readymix solution in Zambia. MSS is now
Attie Brink. also the Dieci agent for Zambia.
Upon Brinks’ s return from Zambia, he earnestly marketed the Matpro Site Based Readymix Solution to the construction industry.
Matpro Site Based Readymix Solutions established its second project on MSP’ s award-winning Buh-Rein Estate in the northern suburbs of Cape Town in July 2011, and subsequently took on three more of MSP’ s sites. Since then it also served and supplied numerous other construction companies with the likes of Remey Construction, Breekon Construction, Foundry Property Development, Koelenhof Konstruksie and Groeneveld Civil Engineering Construction and many more.
Concrete is traditionally supplied by readymix concrete suppliers from their strategically placed static plants. Mortar and plaster can also be supplied by these companies, but usually at a greater cost than the commonly used practice of site mixing by hand. This often results in wastage, inaccuracies and labour costs that are not considered when calculating the genuine cost of a cubic metre of wet cementitious material.
See more on page 14.
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MARCH- APRIL 2018
AFFORDABLE
SA HOUSING