Speedwell Reinforcement's, now in its 46th year in business make a positive virtue out of tackling contracts which others may shy away from because they are too fiddly, too demanding or simply too tough.

Over the years the company has gained an impressive reputation for superior quality products and services as well as competitive prices. The key to this success has been its ability to make non-standard mesh and prefabricated cages, precisely to customers requirements.

Speedwell prides itself on keeping its customers - customers who include major tunnelling business's, leading telecommunications companies, the rail industry and water companies.

It boasts the international ISO 9001/2000 quality standard but, if anything, the company sets even more store by the fact that it has the CARES accreditation, originally introduced as a quality assurance standard for mills making reinforcing steels.

The quality is second to none and the firms ability to control and guarantee the quality of its products is aided by the scope of its manufacturing capabilities which is essential when supplying products for safety critical applications such as tunnel linings.

Speedwell has the capability to draw wire down to the required diameter, straighten it, cut it to length, create the jigs and tooling that hold the pieces in place while they are resistance or MIG welded and then bend the resulting mesh to a radius within a three millimeter tolerance using unique bending machines which it designed and built in house.

The range of equipment, the skills and the versatility of Speedwell's 60-strong workforce gives the company the additional ability to make complex, three dimensional reinforcing cages and store them, confident in the knowledge that when the customer wants them, they will match the design parameters as accurately as the day they were made.

Accuracy is paramount. Not only will the strength of reinforced concrete be compromised if the shape of the reinforcing steel is outside the tolerances laid down, but steel reinforcement must nowadays be a set distance within the concrete to ensure spalling does not take place and result in corrosion.

While some manufacturers make a virtue out of the necessity of manufacturing 'Just in Time' and avoiding the risk that reinforcement products will not maintain their shape when stacked and stored for any length of time. Speedwell can manufacture for stock with confidence and take over the job of stocking and scheduling deliveries for clients.

That can take a lot of worry off a customers shoulders, particularly if they have a lengthy tunnelling contract and don't want the extra bother of regular re-ordering. Speedwell can inform any customer when they are coming to the end of their stocks and if they increase the speed at which they are manufacturing, Speedwell's production can be stepped up accordingly.