10 years of successful precast production in Thailand
In 2004, Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited (ITD), one of Thailand’s and Asia’s leading construction companies, introduced the country’s first modern automated factory for the production of precast concrete elements. Originally designed for manufacturing annually 40.000 social housing units, the factory became one of the prototypes and origins of mass housing production in Thailand.
Ten years following its highly successful launch, ITD decided to implement vital steps to modernize its precast factory with one of Germany’s leading precast machinery and solutions providers Weckenmann Anlagentechnik GmbH & Co. KG, Dormettingen.
Expanded overseas
In 1954, began a strong friendship between Thai national Dr. Chaijudh Karnasuta and Italian Giorgio Berlingieri. In 1958 they founded Italian-Thai Development Corporation Limited (ITD) as a small construction company with a capital of only 2 million Baht (ca. 50.000 EUR). After the passing away of Giorgio Berlingieri in 1981, ITD has been under an all-Thai management led by the Karnasuta family members.
In addition to the domestic market, ITD successfully has expanded overseas to India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Maldives, the Philippines, Madagascar, Taiwan etc. Under its motto “Commitment, Reliability, Quality”, today the company with more than 28.000 employees follows nine major business activities. Large scale building projects and the construction of highways and railways by far are the company’s most important fields of activity. In order to support the building activities of the Company, ITD has developed a range of inhouse capabilities including a turnkey design group to provide full architectural design services, precast concrete structural panel manufacture, precast concrete beam manufacture, and precast decorative panel manufacture.
New era of precast production
The foundation of the company’s modern precast factory goes back to the beginning of the last decade when ITD was awarded the Baan Ua-Arthorn mass housing project by the National Housing Authority comprising of 5-storey condominium buildings, each unit ranging between 24 m² and 33 m². In order to be able to meet the high production demand of the proj-ect, with more than 40.000 units annually to be delivered, ITD decided to open a new era of precast production in Thailand by opting for a combined circulation line and battery mould production approach: Pre-designed battery moulds, already then supplied by Weckenmann Anlagentechnik GmbH & Co. KG. Once the perfect concrete mixture had been accomplished and production was fine-tuned after a short trial period, the two battery moulds produced two cycles of high quality precast elements per day.
All remaining wall elements were produced on the new circulation line, which was unique for Thailand at its time. ITD proudly introduced the new project to the market in 2004.
Keeping high standards through modernization
ITD mainly produces precast elements for its own company internal demand and not the open market, but the company’s management as part of its overall philosophy places utmost importance on high quality.
Therefore, after 10 years of successful operation, the company decided to exchange its existing pallets for its circulation line operation through pallets made of single high quality steel sheets from Weckenmann Anlagentechnik GmbH & Co. KG.
In addition to improvements to the moulding quality, ITD also decided to undergo optimization works on individual machinery and control systems, which was also successfully carried out by Weckenmann Anlagentechnik GmbH & Co. KG and personal visits through the experts from the company’s integrated control system department. Torsten Patyk, Head of the Weckenmann Control Systems Department, who supervised the modernization process comments: “Thanks to our own control system department we could quickly react to the needs of the customer and meet his requirements in the shortest possible time.”
Looking into the future
The Thai market in recent years has witnessed the emergence of numerous precast factories, both by leading real estate developers as well as by individual companies who have started offering precast concrete products to the open market.
Competition in general has surely become more fierce on the national precast market, however, due to its strong standing as one of the country’s largest and leading construction groups, ITD has successfully been able to further strengthen its foothold. This has also positively affected the company’s precast operation and the continuous need for high quality precast elements. Precast Factory Manager Chalermchaichavalit concludes satisfied: “For the past 10 years, our factory successfully has supplied prime quality products for our projects. Due to the undertaken modernization steps we can maintain our high product quality level to be competitive for the years to come.”
