ABDULLA Essa Al Kobaisi claims that his indigenous concept for fast-tracking the construction of reinforced concrete buildings provides the ideal solution for the huge housing problems faced not only by Bahrain but the entire Gulf region, adding that all he needs is a chance to prove it.

The patented Al Kobaisi building system – the brainchild of Al Kobaisi, managing director of the Bahrain-based Al Kobaisi Group and built with the help of Nuspl, a leading German precast equipment manufacturer – is all set for commissioning by the end of this month (September). The facility is expected to officially go on stream on Bahrain’s National Day (December 16).

The sophisticated $50-million factory, which will produce a revolutionary streamlined building system, offers the ability to build houses faster and cheaper while maintaining the quality of construction, says Al Kobaisi, adding that it will also avoid human error and is not hampered by weather conditions.

The technique automates much of the construction process that involves using traditional materials such as cement and concrete blocks and the latest technology to produce them. The factory, built in the Hidd Industrial Estate over an area of 50,000 sq m, essentially brings several factories under the Al Kobaisi Group umbrella under one roof to produce the building system.

“Al Kobaisi Group is well aware of the housing requirements of the country and has developed the system to meet the rising demand from citizens faced with the dilemma of expensive homes and a meagre budget,” says Al Kobaisi.

With the new system, he says, the factory can build up to 200 houses a month at a much cheaper price. “The cost of a turnkey 250-sq-m unit consisting of four bedrooms, a big hall, kitchen, a garage for two cars, lighting, etc will be no more than BD35,000 ($92,592),” he points out, adding that this does not include land price.

At the factory, houses will be built using blocks and cement in the traditional way, but using machines, thus ensuring superior quality of construction, he adds.

“Whereas on site walls are constructed vertically, at the factory they will be built on a horizontal bed, where blocks and reinforcement are placed and cemented – which ensures cement is distributed evenly. The wall is then placed in a special furnace for curing. This process also ensures that the construction is not hampered by exposure to weather conditions. The windows and doors are then installed on another production line.”

At the new facility, Al Kobaisi’s satellite factories for blocks, readymix concrete, and glass and aluminium windows will feed the main building system production line via conveyor belts. The factory design may also incorporate a system for manufacturing and installing tiles to be fitted in the finished house, as well as electrical, mechanical and plumbing works. This means up to 70 per cent of the work on the housing unit will be done in the factory with only the remaining 30 per cent of the work, including erection and flooring, done on site.

Completed villas by Al Kobaisi ... low cost.

Al Kobaisi says modifications are continually being done to the original design using new ideas in a bid to provide an ideal solution to any potential problems that may be encountered in the future.

He says that by keeping the workforce and time taken on a project down by as much as 80 per cent, the automated system will slash the cost of building a home by as much as 40 per cent compared to traditional methods while maintaining quality of construction.

Using the technique, key building components – footings, wall panels and roofs – will be manufactured on a production line, drastically reducing the time taken to transport various materials to the site. The benefits of the system include quicker returns on investment, lower maintenance requirements and reduced expatriate labour costs, while the number of trucks plying Bahrain’s roads with construction materials would also be reduced, with semi-finished building units transported to the site and assembled there.

Furthermore, Al Kobaisi says that the group is also studying ways to partly automate work on the site as well to further reduce time taken.

Part of the new facility is a hollowcore production facility, which Al Kobaisi claims will have the largest design capacity in Bahrain when it starts operation. The facility will have more production lines to produce hollowcore slabs than others in the market. It will also have one of the biggest cement products manufacturing facilities in the country.

Al Kobaisi says he will offer the building system to all Gulf states once it is up and running since the housing problem is not only confined to Bahrain, adding that he has already received a positive response for his concept from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

From a business point of view, Al Kobaisi says the Bahrain market is currently down but will pick up since the government has recently announced some major housing projects, adding that his company is geared to meet the anticipated demand.

Al Kobaisi Group, a fully-owned Bahraini company established in 1972, has worked as the main contractor on a number of housing projects of the Ministry of Housing in Jidhafs, Busaiteen and Hamad Town. It has also undertaken such projects as a private developer, having been responsible for the development of an 84-villa project in Arad, and a group of villas in Janusan, Busaiteen and Sanad.

The group is headquartered in the Sitra industrial area and has many divisions that cater to the construction sector. These include Al Kobaisi Aluminium and Glass, Al Kobaisi Readymix (which has an annual production capacity of 1.2 million cu m), Al Kobaisi Precast Factory (540,000 sq m of hollowcore slabs and 900,000 sq m of building/housing components a year), Al Kobaisi Block Factory (30 million of various pieces a year), Al Kobaisi Construction and Maintenance, Al Kobaisi Sand and Aggregate, Al Kobaisi Electrical Contracting, Al Kobaisi Carpentry and Joinery, and Al Kobaisi Building System. Other business activities include a travel and tour agency, car rental and transport services, hotel apartment, fuel and service station, vehicle sales, and steel and pipe structure fabrication and installation.
The company is to soon launch its readymix plants in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman.

The group uses the latest technology for cement and cement products such as fully-automatic batching plants and the renowned Hess system for block making.

Some of its completed projects for concrete and block supply include the 50-storey Sukoon Towers, Sheikh Khalifa Port, Shaikh Isa Sports City, Fantana twin towers, Fortune Tower, Regent Tower, a shopping complex in Segaya and Ishbilliyya Village project.