The market for steel buildings in the Middle East region in general, and the Gulf in particular, has changed dramatically over the past three decades.

Steel buildings were used in some industrial and storage applications, such as factories and warehouses. Nowadays, nearly all new factory and warehouse buildings in the region are steel buildings, and a major proportion of these buildings are pre-engineered.

The success of the pre-engineered buildings system was not only limited to industrial and storage buildings as the scope of application of pre-engineered buildings expanded dramatically to include all types of low-rise buildings such as shopping malls, supermarkets, showrooms, offices, aircraft hangars, airport terminals, distribution centres and agricultural buildings, etc.

Zamil Steel is one of the few players who have significantly contributed to the steel building revolution in the region. Established in Dammam in 1977, Zamil Steel started with an annual production of around 400,000 sq m of pre-engineered steel buildings, the company has since grown into one of the major steel building suppliers in the world, producing more than six million sq m of steel buildings every year. Its network of factories, engineering groups and area offices that are spread in over 50 countries, enabled the company to deliver its buildings to more than 70 different destinations from countries as far as Mexico and Panama in the West and South Korea and Guam in the East.

"In addition to establishing a broad base of satisfied customers worldwide, we have amassed a large wealth of knowledge and experience from all the markets that we have been operating within during the past two-and-a-half decades," says Nazih Aynati, general manager, Zamil Steel Pre-Engineered Buildings Division. "We have designed our buildings using almost all recognised international codes and even some domestic codes. Furthermore, our buildings, depending on the country, are custom-designed to withstand extreme conditions such as heavy snow loads, high-level seismic zones, and hurricane winds.

"We have not only been improving our steel building systems," adds Aynati, "but have been continuously developing and improving our before and after-sales services. We seriously believe that we have the best before and after-sales service in the industry. After all, service is one of our core competences."

Zamil Steel has more than 180 engineers in its Engineering Department distributing in four country groups, based in Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt and Vietnam. All engineering work at Zamil Steel is computerised and the engineering groups use Zamil Steel's in-house developed engineering and estimating systems.

"Our multi-source engineering and production capabilities enable us to use our resources more effectively in order to satisfy customer and project requirements," explains Aynati. "For instance, last year we were awarded a contract for a large building in Italy through our office in Athens. To respond to our customer's request for a speedy delivery, we designed the building in India and fabricated and shipped the building from our factory in Egypt."

Zamil Steel is one of the first pre-engineered steel building companies to develop its own software. The company employs more than 10 programmers and has been developing and improving its software for more than nine years.

"Our in-house developed engineering system is considered the most advanced in the pre-engineered buildings industry," says Aynati. "We have evaluated all the available estimating, design, and engineering systems and have not found any system that matches our engineering system in its flexibility, responsiveness, clarity and detailed output. In fact, we have been approached by some European and American companies who expressed interest in licensing our system."

"Zamil Steel is by far the largest pre-engineered building manufacturer in Asia and Africa. The company is considered the largest exporter of pre- engineered steel buildings in the world and exports more than 65 per cent of its production.

"To the UAE, Zamil Steel has delivered more than 2,250 buildings, making it the largest supplier to this growing market. In addition to our regional office based in Abu Dhabi, we established earlier this year a large office in Dubai as we plan to strengthen our presence in the Emirates to further increase our market share," says Nasser El-Ali, Zamil Steel's regional manager for the UAE and Oman.

Zamil Steel is a unit of Zamil Industrial Investment Company (ZIIC), a publicly-traded company, which includes two other units, Zamil Air Conditioners and Zamil Glass. ZIIC has manufacturing units in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Vietnam, China, Austria and Italy.