Manufacturer of the year

Winner
Schüco
The advancements of the construction industry would, frankly, advance nowhere were it not for those manufacturers of building products that not only create what we need to build our schemes but also push technological boundaries to make buildings better. Schüco is one such firm. This facade, curtain walling and window supplier has an enviable track record as a great innovator. Not least its work on the acclaimed McLaren Technology Centre in Surrey, where the company used aluminium wind blades and stainless steel vertical tie-rods to create framework from which 40,000 tonnes of glass is almost invisibly suspended. But behind all the glamour and technology, the judges found a company with a commendable dedication to training. Schüco's state-of-the-art training centre in Milton Keynes takes the entire supply chain to NVQ and CSCS standards – last year alone it trained 530 delegates.

'Technically, Schüco continues to power ahead'

RUNNERS-UP
Corus Kalzip
The longest established and most commonly used standing seam roofing in the UK, Kalzip's popularity comes from its versatility as it can be used on a huge range of buildings. And indeed, it has – from offering protection from the elements in functional warehousing to creating a magnificent structure on Foster and Partners' Albion Riverside residential development. One of the most complicated aluminium roofs ever designed, Corus Kalzip worked closely with the architect and contractor to find a solution – and, as anyone walking along the Thames at Battersea will agree, to great success. And of course, the firm's sustainability, partnering and safety credentials did its entry no harm either.

'Kalzip offers unlimited scope for design creativity'

Forticrete
A great deal of the success enjoyed by this masonry and concrete specialist is based on its collaboration with its integrated supply chains, from its suppliers and distributors upstream to the subcontractors, main contractors and clients downstream. And it is not merely the projects that the chain collaborates on, but also improvement in health and safety, engineering-in value and engineering-out waste, and its commitment to easing skills shortages and providing training for all. And Forticrete's recent leaps and bounds in off-site manufacture, for which it has created a whole new company, also wowed our judging panel. Seems that Forticrete's future success is set in stone.

'Forticrete has embraced the tenets of Rethinking Construction'

Permasteelisa
Now an international company with design and manufacturing facilities throughout Europe, Asia and the USA, Permasteelisa is a curtain walling specialist with a difference. One of the most innovative companies to enter these awards, this company undertakes constant research using advance modelling programs and full-scale mock-ups to test the seemingly impossible – and make it possible.

It has recently completed its 14th building at Canary Wharf, the skyscraper city going up in London Docklands, and has also worked on a range of landmark buildings around the capital and far beyond. Plus, the company employs eco-friendly technology that doesn't damage the external environment and improves the internal environment for the building's occupants.

William Hare
A steel-frame supplier that churns out 70,000 tonnes of steel every year from its factories in Scarborough and Bury, William Hare has proven itself a real team player on its projects. As in its work on the W8 project in Regent Street, this firm gets involved from the very outset of the construction programme and remains committed until handover and beyond. Always at the leading edge of CNC technology, William Hare creates highly engineered bespoke solutions for each client. And as it so rightly says, "safety and manufacturing efficiency are not mutually exclusive" – a company ethos that has earned it heaped praise from the gods of safety themselves, the HSE.