Three years ago to the day, an exemplary story of the Hungarian construction industry began

PREbeton Zrt., a member of Market Csoport, celebrated its third anniversary. We first wrote about it on 17 July 2020: exactly three years ago, the company handed over its new precast reinforced concrete plant built in Erdőtelek, Heves County. The activities of PREbeton opened a new chapter in the life of the group, as its products can make the projects of Market more efficient, faster and more environmentally friendly, as we have shown our readers in numerous concrete examples since then.

All figures show dynamic growth

At the same time, the successful operation was also reflected in concrete figures, with the company's turnover tripling in three years, from an initial 5 billion forints to 15 billion forints. In the first three years, 65 thousand cubic metres of precast concrete elements were poured at the plant and 11 thousand tonnes of reinforcing steel were processed.

In addition to the successful projects, the continuous development was also demonstrated by the start of production in July 2022 in the second plant of the PREbeton, which increased the production area to 20,000 square meters from the previous 10,000 square meters.

In addition to this, it is also important to note that the total number of employees was less than 100 at the start, but today the company has 132 employees and almost the same number of subcontractors.

That this momentum shows no sign of slowing down in a changing market environment is demonstrated by the fact that they are currently building a new concrete production plant and will soon double their solar capacity.

Basically, they only deal with fair-faced concrete

The quality targeted by PREbeton was well characterised by the fact that it transported a large quantity of technology – 95 % units delivered from the west – with 120 lorries and introduced processes that were largely new to Hungary at its plant. We discussed these and other topics with Zoltán Csukás, Deputy Chief Technical Officer, during a tour of the plant a month and a half after the factory opening, and summarising what was said, we were fully justified in giving the interview the title that this construction manufacturer has caught up with Western standards.

As one of the main elements of the Western European standard, Zoltán Csukás also said in the interview that the PREbeton is basically only used for fair-faced concrete, providing a surface quality that has a near-marble feel to the touch. "With the new technologies, templates and the new concrete quality, we can provide a much better surface appearance," he stressed.

In addition to successful projects, they have also made their mark in innovation

It was already clear that the market was increasingly demanding the various benefits of prefabrication, and it was an exciting question to see how efficiently the newly formed company could service Market projects while also entering the market, and what experience it could gain and what development decisions it could make based on that experience. The answer is provided by the many successful projects in which PREbeton's involvement has been key, including the BudaPart project, JYSK's logistics centre in Ecser and MOL's headquarters in Budapest. In the latter case, it is worth mentioning that one of the products manufactured by the company was a staircase arm that became an important element of the staircase of the MOL Tower, which will be the tallest building in Hungary.

In addition to its successful market entry, the company quickly became a flagship in the fields of innovation and scientific research: our newspaper three-dimensional concrete printing project, the Lean method company-level application and a valuable research project.

Meeting the challenges of quality and growth at the same time

We last spoke with Zoltán Csukás about the above successes in May last discussed in May with Zoltán Csukás, who reported on another noteworthy achievement in addition to the above. According to him, in the case of an average 50,000 square metre logistics hall, the PREBeton can complete the work process from the delivery of the shell to the completion of the supporting structure two months faster than was typical before it entered the market. The latter still meant 5-6 months.

"All in all, in three years we have become one of the leading companies in the prefabrication market", the Deputy Technical Director General concluded.

"I consider it a great achievement that in such a short time we have built a company that has been able to double its capacity and now has an output of more than 60 thousand cubic metres of concrete, while perfectly meeting the needs of the Market Csoport and the market requirements."