A reputation built around the world

But RMD Kwikform is no overnight success. It's current round of work is the result of a decades of experience that have made it one of the world's go-to companies when it comes to the field of formwork and falsework – the temporary structures used for moulding concrete and supporting building work on construction sites around the globe.

At home it worked on London Olympics site, motorway bridges during widening of the M1, M6 and M25, the JLR engine factory in Wolverhampton and the Resort World leisure complex nearing completion at the NEC in Birmingham.

Managing director Steven Dance said: "Resort World is actually one of the biggest contracts we have had in the UK; it is using every product that we have got, from screen formwork to safety products."

But it is abroad that some of RMD's most spectacular work can be seen, from vast liquid natural gas plants in Australia and the new cruise ship terminal in Hong Kong to enormous shopping malls, airports and, most recently, mosques across the Middle East.

RMD was set up in 1948, during the post-war building boom, by the RM Douglas construction company in Birmingham. It was a way to sell it's growing expertise in formwork and falsework to other building firms.

Mr Dance, RMD's managing director for the last decade, explained: "Hardly anyone uses it, but the initials stand for Rapid Metal Development.

"After the war wood was in short supply and very expensive, so RMD used specialist steels and aluminium to create its falsework and formwork."

While initially based in the UK, there was always what Mr Dance calls "an international itch". RMD started working in Australia in 1958, spreading to other Commonwealth countries and protectorates such as Hong Kong and the Trucial States which later became the United Arab Emirates.

In the meantime, as RMD continued to grow, RM Douglas was swallowed up by what became the Interserve construction group, which recently hailed the profits contribution of its Aldridge-based formwork business.

From its headquarters in Brickyard Road, RMD now employs 2,000 people working in 20 countries, including Chile, South Africa and the USA as well as Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Abu Dhabi.

Most of the national operations are run as independent businesses with their own boards, but supervised from the home office in Aldridge. "It makes us decentralised and very entrepreneurial," said Steven Dance.

The company has expanded to prefabricated scaffolding systems and safety equipment as well as its interlocking series of construction products, using on bridges, dams, high rise buildings, stadiums and tunnels.

"We've created reservoirs as big as Aldridge town centre in Qatar, where they are building new city," said Mr Dance. "And they are expected to start work soon on the stadiums for the 2022 football World Cup."

"A lot of our success is down to our proprietary tools and equipment. We have designed it so it all works together, like a giant Meccano set. We are continually investing in research and development and we are a leader in the use of BIM – Building Information Management."

This is the system of computer modelling that allows companies to effectively build a project on screen.

"It works in 4-D, including time, so we can see any clashes between the various contractors on the project and avoid them.

"While we may not be the cheapest, we can help a client reduce their overall costs, making us the most cost-effective choice.

"And we do that because our systems are very clever and our engineers are clever."

A particular success for RMD's use of computer modelling was in designing the precision support system used to install the complex glass and steel shroud that covers the spectacular Yas Hotel in Dubai.

Between 80 and 90 per cent of the company's work is overseas, which won the company a Queen's Awards for Exports in 2010.

RMD comes up with the designs for projects, and supplies the equipment, but the actual construction work is down by contractors or sub-contractors.

As a result, of a global workforce of around 2,0000, just 60 people work at the head office, with another 60 in nearby Stubbers Green Road at the Midlands branch and logistics operation.

On a Middle East project where the workforce can be counted in the hundreds, or even the thousands, a team of a dozen or less from RMD will be involved in supervising or training.

For instance, in Saudi Arabia RMD has designed and supplied over 15,000 tons of formwork and shoring solutions to the main contractor working on the extension to the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca.

"It is a particularly challenging contract," said Mr Dance. "We have had to recruit and train a complete team of muslims because we, as non-muslims, can't set foot on such a holy site.

"But it has gone so well we believe we are now in pole position to work on the extension to the mosque at Medina, Saudi Arabia's other holy city.

"It has been a vast project, including work on expanding the main airport at Jeddah, building railway stations, bus stations, hotels, bridges and even a prison. Part of it involved an elevated road to the new airport terminal. That was a very complex engineering design and I believe we are the only company that could have done it.

"Work in the Middle East is very challenging, however. Customers will want a job completed in the time it would take just to go through the planning process in the UK."

But RMD has become the company of choice in its specialist field in the lucrative Middle Eastern market, with a track record that includes the world's biggest shopping mall in Dubai – covering an area the size of 50 football pitches – as well as the rival 162,500 sq m (1.75 million sq ft) Mall of Egypt due to open next year.