50th anniversary
RAPID INTERNATIONAL:
CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF MIXING TECHNOLOGY EXPERTISE Rapid International Ltd recently celebrated its 50th anniversary; established in County Armagh in 1969, the company is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of mixing technology for the concrete, construction, environmental, nuclear, mining and tunnelling industries. In 1969, at a period in Northern Ireland’s history when political and sectarian violence were commonplace, Rapid’s founders, Robert (Bertie) Pickering and Jim Lappin intended to bring about advancement, progress and hope for the local economy. Founded on 1 September 1969, Craigavon Engineering, originally manufactured agricultural equipment in a humble 7m x 4m domestic garage. From the outset, Bertie and Jim were renowned for their exacting quality standards and customer focus. Demand subsequently grew and in the 1970’s the business relocated to a larger custom built facility, diversifying into manufacturing ready mixed and precast concrete plant. Today, each machine is produced in Rapid’s 50,000 square foot purpose built factory, which underwent a recent extension to include a new £1 million state of-the-art Hodge Clemco shotblasting facility and Dalby paint booth. In 1982, Rapid launched the first in a range of concrete mixers, the Rapid Pan. The very first of these was sold to J Graham and Sons Ltd in County Down and is still operational today, 37 years later. The product range later expanded in 1992 to include the novel Rapid Reclaimer, a reclaiming unit for the recovery of unused concrete. The ground-breaking invention was met with industry acclaim and featured on BBC’s Tomorrow’s World. Rapidmix, Rapid’s flagship product, was first launched in 1997 and later adapted to include full weighing capabilities in 2012. Rapidmix is a totally mobile and self-contained, high volume continuous mixing plant ideal for
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PLANT & CIVIL ENGINEER
Managing Director Mark Lappin (left) with John Pickering, Operations Executive.
a wide range of concrete, construction, civils and environmental applications.
Applications expertise New product development remains a strong focus for Rapid and the product range has expanded considerably since 2009. Rapidbatch, Rapid’s first fully mobile concrete batching plant, was launched in 2009, as was the Rapid twin-shaft
concrete mixer. Transbatch, a compact, single load version of the Rapidbatch plant, was launched in 2011, followed by Trakmix, an innovative track-mounted mobile continuous mixing plant in 2015. In recent years, Rapid has witnessed a demand shift towards specialist applications such as contaminated land treatment, mine back fill, tunnel finings, marine
