From the Ground Up

In the concrete flooring industry where speed and efficiency are paramount, the question remains: how flat is your floor?

As demand for warehouse and industrial space in the GCC soars, so to does the outcry for greater regulation in concrete flooring standards. The CoGri Group is coming forward with a solution, seeking to implement an internationally recognised certification for flooring contractors within the Middle East.

“The floor is arguably the most important part of the building. It is the table on which all operations take place. Not only is it part of the structure, but also an integrated part of the materials handling system,” says Kevin Dare, Managing Director of CoGri Group Ltd.

The CoGri Group’s reputation in the materials handling and flooring industry predicates such lofty ambitions. Established in 1989, they began as a small manual hand grinding service and are now a globally recognised brand, with subsidiary companies including FACE Consultants Ltd (FACE), Concrete Grinding Ltd (CG), and CG Flooring Systems (CGFS). CoGri Group appears to have hedged their bets on what looks to be an ever-expanding market in the GCC, most notably Dubai.

“The CoGri Group has been working in the Middle East for some time now. As the demand for our services continues to grow, it makes business sense that we are also based there, so that we are able to work closely with our clients and operate more efficiently.

With the recent launch of FACE Middle East, Dare is convinced the region will benefit from CoGri’s expertise and locality. “We chose Dubai for its strategic location, given all the advantages of a highly developed economy. As a regional trading hub, the location also offers convenient access to businesses in neighboring countries, of whom we have had dealings with.

“Dubai is one of the fastest growing business centres in the Middle East and presents international business essential is within aisles of high density warehouses where defined path, very narrow aisle trucks operate.

“When talking about VNA (very narrow aisle), you spend 10 per cent of your time talking about the machine and 90 per cent of the time talking about the floor,”Godbold says.

There are two types of warehouse floor usage, ‘free movement’ and ‘defined traffic’ floors. Free movement floors refer to areas where material handling equipment operates in random, non-defined directions and have an infinite number of travel paths. Defined traffic floors are where forklift trucks are fixed in the path they run, such as very narrow aisles. Both types have different floor flatness specifications.

The CoGri Group’s FACE Middle East branch will offer Floor Flatness Compliance Testing on industrial concrete floors, providing accurate and detailed results for defined movement (narrow aisle) and free movement (open area) surveys, to British (TR34), German (DIN), and American (Fmin) standards. CG Flooring Systems Ltd (CGFS), another subsidiary of CoGri Group, conducts the refurbishment of warehouse, industrial and commercial floor surfaces. Their industrial cementitious screeds can quickly and effectively upgrade most floors.

In addition to the FACE and CGFS, the CoGri Group also provides Concrete Grinding Ltd (CG), which specialises in upgrading aisles in new and existing VNA/narrow aisle warehouse units. “At this moment in time we’ve got a big grinding contract going in Kuwait. “Once the floor has been grinded, measured and tested we’ll then issue a certification saying the floor meets the required standard of flatness.”

“With VNA, the clearances are critical. If you’ve got a floor which is only a couple millimetres out, left to right at ground level, by the time you’ve got 14 metres in the air that could be 50, 60, 70 mm you’ve lost at the top. And that’s static.

“When the machine is working in the aisle its running up to 9 km per hour, with only minimal clearance. So the floor has to be very accurate, because then you start to get dynamic movement. And that’s the reason why you have to have a very flat, what we call a Super Flat floor.”

Utilising their patented Laser Grinder ®, aisles on new and existing floors can be upgraded to the flatness standards required to operate VNA forklift trucks safely and at their optimum efficiency.

“As the order book filled up and our client list grew, we needed to find a cleaner, more efficient method of grinding in operational warehouse aisles. There was no suitable equipment available to hire or buy, so we decided to build our own” said Kevin Dare, inventor of the Laser Grinder®

The Laser Grinder® has not always been confined to warehouses. A couple of years ago it was used to flatten a 200 metre concrete section of a drag racing track in Umm Al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates.

As control within the industry is not always met with open arms, contractors are somewhat hesitant to have ‘experts’ peering over the shoulders. In attempting to reign in industrial Super Flat flooring standards, Godbold believes greater regulation and supervision will ultimately serve in the customer’s best interest.

“The problem is what has happened in the past is the contractor has come in, laid the floor, and said there you are. Has it met the tolerances we gave you? Yes fine, but what were the tolerances? There weren’t any standards here at all, and no one to test it. So nobody knew what the result was. So the contractor said thank you very much, took his money and walked away.”

With the advancements in technology currently available, floors can be accurately measured within nanometers. Such advancements also allow for digital printouts of the area that may not comply to the precise standard required, allowing the owner or contractor to see the floor’s actual flatness or defects.

“To whatever degree we are involved. It is always in the customer’s interest to at least get the floor independently measured and tested afterwards. While the contractor is still on sight, and is responsible, because he can be held responsible for that floor if has not met the tolerances specified. Whether you decide to work with us or not, at least get it independently tested in the end.”