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For the second time, Vandersanden Bricks was declared ‘best supplier’ in the building materials market at the Autoworld fair in Brussels on Friday 9 November 2007. FeMa is the Belgian federation of merchants in building materials.
More than 300 prominent figures from the building industry were present at the sixth edition of this award ceremony. The awards are a sign of recognition of the trade towards the industry and vice versa.
On 9th November 2007 the ceremony of the FeMa-Award took place in the motorcar museum "Autoworld" in Brussels. The FeMa-Awards, a real piece of art, are presented every two years by traders who are members of the FeMa to a producer who is a member of Feproma, taking into account the extent to which the producers show respect for the different aspects of cooperation as described in the FeMa-charter. Aspects like ethics, quality, observance of engagement, information support, a pro-active commercial policy and a coherent price policy are considered.
In the building materials category, apart from laureate Vandersanden, Terca-Desimpel, Koramic and Xella, were nominated for the FeMa-Award. Vandersanden received the Award for the second time in a row. The prize was given to Vandersanden’s commercial director Wilfried Lenaers, sales director Belgium Jos Achten and general director Jean-Pierre Wuytack.
The management and the personnel at Vandersanden truly have something to be proud of with this recognition. “Vandersanden still is a family company and feels strongly about giving the client the necessary attention”, says Jos Achten. “This is a prize for all our staff, employees, clerks as well as managers, for their daily efforts, flexibility and service. This award will receive place of honour in our showroom, where all our clients can see it, as a thank you for their trust in Vandersanden”, according to Jos Achten.
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On Wednesday 26 September, the new Huwa-Vandersanden factory in Hedikhuizen (near ‘s Hertogenbosch) was officially opened in the presence of the Dutch Minister for Economic Affairs Van der Hoeven. The production-unit, coupled with an investment of 40 million euro, has a capacity of approx. 75 million bricks per year. Enough to be able to meet the growing German and Dutch market demand for hand made facing bricks, chiefly of the Vandersanden brand. On top of that 5 new jobs are being created.
The joint venture between Vandersanden nv and the Dutch factory HUWA Baksteen was established in 2005 and aims at the Dutch as well as the German market. In the new Huwa-Vandersanden factory, mainly bricks with the brand name Vandersanden will be produced.
Because the demand for hand made facing bricks, chiefly of the Vandersanden brand, has risen so much over the last few years in the Netherlands and Germany, the old factory in Hedikhuizen was replaced by an ultra modern production-unit. The new factory – equipped with the newest techniques in the field of production and ecology – has a capacity of approximately 75 million bricks per year.
The building, as well as the installations, has been designed and built with high energy efficiency in mind: all the used energy is utilized optimally. The oven, with a length of 140 m, has been traditionally built in brick with durability and energy saving in mind. Just a few examples of the energy-friendly production: the residual warmth of the ovens is used for the drying chambers, broken bricks are pulverized and used again, rainwater is collected and after use, filtered and entered back into the production process.
Apart from the factory in Hedikhuizen, Huwa-Vandersanden has two more production units in the Netherlands: namely in Spijk and Angeren. The three Belgian Vandersanden factories will, first of all, serve the Belgian market (55% of the production), the rest will be exported to Japan, Russia and almost the whole of Europe. On a yearly basis, Vandersanden Belgium and Huwa-Vandersanden the Netherlands produce more than 500 million bricks – good for a third place within Europe.
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After having been located for more than 20 years in Northern France, the sales office of Vandersanden Bricks in Halluin was due some modernization. Since 1 May 2007, Vandersanden welcomes those keen to build their own home, in the new showroom in Halluin (near Menen).
In the 400m² spacious showroom, the complete range of bricks is exhibited using a new panel concept, the so-called “tourniquets” (see photo).
By means of large revolving example panels, you can examine and compare the different brick colours and matching joints.
More over, you can count on the professional advice of our enthusiastic sales team.
Vandersanden innovates! This is evident in a recent project that Vandersanden Steenfabrieken has set up in cooperation with nv De Scheepvaart.
Since its headquarters are situated in Lanklaar (Dilsen-Stokkem) right next to the Zuidwillemsvaart, the idea grew within the company to transport facing bricks by canal.
Menen, near the French border, is easy to reach by inland waterway, which gives Vandersanden the chance to deliver even more efficiently to its clients in Hainault, West Flanders and the North of France.
A brilliant idea. After various studies and tests around the concept of pallet transport on inland waterways it was apparent that loading and unloading barges took up too much time and was ultimately found to be too expensive. Thus it was that Vandersanden came up with the idea of using a pontoon. Because nothing is placed in the hold of the ship but, on the pontoon, the pallets can be simply loaded and unloaded by fork-lift truck. Vandersanden deployed resources to adapt a pontoon to the necessary requirements and made personnel available to carry out a number of test runs.
A promising project. In May and June the project team carried out various test runs between Lanklaar, Menen and Tessenderlo. With two fork-lift trucks 550 tons were easily unloaded in four hours.
The tests showed that the pontoon concept worked faultlessly on all tested quay walls. At present there are a number of details that still require improvement, but pallet transport by pontoon appears to offer a short-term alternative transport for the more than one million tons of palletized building products that now travel to and fro by road.
Sustainable enterprise. Vandersanden Steenfabrieken has not only set itself the target of being the best brickmaker but proves in this project that awareness of the environment and sustainable relations with the environment are important areas of concern within the company.
By partially shifting its transport from road to canal Vandersanden is making use of an environmentally softer alternative to the crowded, polluting road traffic. After all, energy consumption and emissions of harmful gases per ton of carried load is much lower for inland waterways than for any other means of transport. By relieving freight transport on the road ,transport via canal is contributing to traffic safety on the roads.
Other companies in Fema and Feproma, the professional associations of building contractors and manufacturers of building materials, have also found inspiration in this project and are eager to see the further development of pallet transport via inland waterways.
