NEWS & PRESS

NUROCK CEMENTS BIG 12-YEAR DEFENCE CONTRACT

Merseyside-based Nurock Limited, the UK’s only designer and manufacturer of specialist volumetric concrete mixers, has won a prestigious contract to supply new equipment and product support that will be used by the Ministry of Defence for the next 12 years.

The first year’s deal worth £600,000 is for six highly specified mixers which will be used in the repair of airfield runways in the event of bomb damage.

Nurock fought off stiff competition from suppliers around the world to be awarded the contract by ALC, an Amey and VT Group joint venture,  and innovative PFI worth £600 million over 15 years..

ALC provide and maintain a worldwide fleet of construction vehicles, plant and field mechanical handling equipment to the British Armed Forces.

“The process was exhaustive, ALC and the MoD left no stone unturned in their analysis of each company’s equipment, said Graham Jones, Managing Director of Nurock Mixers.

“The tender which has taken nearly 2 years has involved considerable work including presentations and extended trials and testing in areas such as equipment and concrete performance, ease of operation and serviceability, internal and external quality systems, spare parts and support, and financial sustainability.  ALC use a number of independent and in house technical experts to assess all of the above that ensures they have an extremely robust procurement process.

“The mixers are used with a specialised rapid hardening cement to produce concrete that is hard enough to land a fully armed Tornado fighter within three hours. Nurock’s mixer achieved the highest strengths of all the manufacturers during trials.  Everyone at Nurock is enormously proud that our mixers will play a crucial role in allowing planes to land in emergency situations when every second counts. Other concrete mixing duties are planned by the MoD once the mixers come into service this year” said Jones.

Dick Martin, Optimisation Director of ALC, said:  “We made the decision to ‘down select’ Nurock after an in-depth demonstration and evaluation process with several other well established suppliers. However, ALC in consultation with our commercial partners, made the final decision to procure Nurock’s Volumetric Mixer. We believe that its blend of robust design, with consistent outputs best met our requirements. Given the level of participation we require from our Manufacturing Partners having Nurock’s design and manufacturing under one roof, was also a major benefit to ALC.”

Discussions are currently taking place for supply of further equipment in future years and there has been interest expressed by ALC and the MoD in Nurock’s new innovative “compact” mixer which can produce 1.5m³ of concrete in under five minutes using a unique combination of hoppers and hydraulics.

The six products being supplied by Nurock this year are based on their successful NUVM 7 cubic metre mixers mounted on full military spec Iveco Trakker 6x6 wheel drive trucks provided by ALC. Nurock have also signed a service and supply for spare parts for the lifetime of ALC’s current contract.

Winning this prestigious contract has enabled Nurock to provide new jobs and opportunities for the local area. Nurock have also secured £75,000 worth of funding from the North West Development Agency for further investment in training and product development, including 100 per cent stocking of spare parts, which is required to support the mixers fully in operation.

“We have seen this as a great opportunity to grow and develop our business and the contract will benefit our existing and future customers in allowing us to deliver an unparalleled product and service combination,” added Jones.

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