Transport innovation for balconies

Transport innovation drives progress in all areas, and as a society, we’re no strangers to this type of originality.

Across history, incredible innovations have taken place around the globe – at one point the boat, the car or the plane were all innovative ideas that helped bring transport into their respective centuries. We’re still innovating with each of these today in construction, finding new ways to utilize vehicles to help construction thrive.

Residential construction is no stranger to these interesting innovations in transport. Sapphire is here to explain exactly how we’re continuing to innovate in the balcony market.

Offsite storage

Since 1992, we’ve been pioneers in minimising on-site work, maximising offsite production.

Sapphire manufactures and stores all our balconies at offsite facilities. What this means is we have dedicated factories across the world to build the balconies for your project and then store them for as long as you need us to.

Historically, we used to work with a just-in-time (JIT) process but realised that as good as the theory is, it’s a vulnerable method which doesn’t work well for customers. Manufacturing and storing balconies in advance of installation means that customers’ programs or site challenges, weather, delays or needing to change sequencing, can all benefit from working to store rather than the JIT process which lacks flexibility.

We’ve maximised the level of offsite manufacture and storage we perform in part to reduce the number of journeys taken to the installation site. Dedicated production facilities help us to only perform absolutely necessary transport, such as raw materials (aluminium and glass) to the factory and then finished balconies to the site. This reduces the carbon output of your project, as less unnecessary fuel will be wasted and will help to keep your project sustainable.

Our recently-launched Next Generation balconies are manufactured and stored off-site until the site is ready for installation. At that point, they’re delivered as and when needed, making your project’s installation process a breeze.

Stackable balconies

Once a balcony is assembled and checked for quality, it can be loaded onto a flatbed or Hiab truck for transport to the site. Normally, this would be the source of a large amount of carbon output, but at Sapphire, we’ve decided to innovate and perform more sustainable practices at the same time.

By double-stacking balconies on these flatbed lorries, we can transport twice as many balconies at once, meaning not only do your balconies get to the installation site faster but far less carbon is emitted in the process. This simple yet interesting innovation to balcony transport can halve the embodied carbon on your project as it will require half the lorry journeys. In terms of staying sustainable, this innovation is one of the simplest yet most effective ways of doing so.

Digital traceability (Passport)

Beyond just transporting the balconies, we use our innovative Passport app to maintain a Golden Thread of quality along the entire manufacturing process.

This form of digital traceability helps us to make fewer journeys in a single building’s balcony installation. We are able to check at the factory for any faults in the manufacturing process and make sure that only balconies that meet our stringent ‘Rigid, Ready, Right’ brand promise are delivered to the installation site.

Offsite Production

Interesting innovations in transport are driving progress across the entire residential construction industry and Sapphire is a strong supporter of innovating in the market.

From manufacturing balconies offsite, checking their quality through our Passport app and then double-stacking them, all to reduce the number of unnecessary journeys and decrease the carbon emissions of your project – Sapphire is making interesting innovations in transport more often than you’d expect.

To learn more about offsite production and storage, visit our Offsite Balcony Production hub:

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