Establishing or Investing in a Force 10 Production Facility
Currently, all Force 10 products for the Caribbean and Latin America are manufactured at the Force 10 factory in Brisbane, Australia and then the component packages are shipped in containers to the closest port facility. As interest in the Force 10 Engineered Building System grows, the orders coming from the Caribbean and Latin American will support a factory in this region.
There is an active Force 10 production facility in Abu Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that is producing housing for the Middle East. A new production facility is scheduled to be built in the Southeast USA in 2008.
A Force 10 production facility in the Caribbean would help reduce the costs for the building component packages, as well as provide the host country with an export product for Latin America and the Caribbean. The market for Force 10 products has been increasing throughout the Caribbean and U.S.A. since it's regional introduction in 1992. The islands of St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands as well as Aruba, Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Lucia, Anguilla, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas have purchased Force 10 products from the Brisbane, Australia facility. We forecast that many other Caribbean islands will begin placing orders in the near future, thus increasing the market distribution and regional demand substantially.
Many nations in the Caribbean are ideal locations for a Force 10 production facility for the following reasons:
a) Demand for affordable, attractive, hurricane resistant housing is increasing locally and regionally.
b) Proximity to raw material suppliers in U.S., Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America.
c) Educated labor force with a reasonable wage scale along with a positive investment climate.
d) Good shipping connections to the U.S., Caribbean, Latin America and Europe.
e) Caricom status with reduced import duties for goods shipped to Caribbean members.
f) Proposed regional trade agreements may reduce import duties to other nations.
Force 10 component packages are supplied with a 10 year structural warranty, engineering certification and a product component warranty. Our warranty requires that all Force 10 Dealers and Builders participate in a training program that is taught by a Force 10 Trainer to insure that all Force 10 component packages are assembled properly. Force 10 is proud to be an ISO 9001 Quality Assurance company and we are dedicated to maintaining a consistently high quality product to international ISO 9001 standards. The QA program starts with the manufacturing process, includes all the materials supplied and carries through to the training of all work crews. This is essential to market Force 10 on a regional and worldwide basis. There is no other building system, that I am aware of, that provides warranties on their engineering, product components and manufacturing quality for hurricane windspeeds. Many products claim that they will withstand these winds, but none will back it up with a structural warranty and engineering certificate. As residential and commercial insurance premiums rise with every new hurricane in the Caribbean and USA, this warranty becomes more important every year. In over eighteen years of hurricane and earth tremor destruction in the tropical regions of the Pacific and Caribbean Oceans, not one Force 10 Engineered Building System structure has sustained any structural damage or even lost a roof sheet. Compare this with any other building system, conventional or new technology, on the market today.
Many Caribbean and Latin American nations would benefit greatly by having a Force 10 production facility in their country. The need for high quality buildings that are fire, termite, rot, earthquake and hurricane resistant is growing rapidly throughout the Caribbean Basin. The destruction to the housing stock due to natural disasters has demonstrated the advantages of engineered structures. A production facility would provide jobs, high quality buildings and an export product. When a large project of affordable housing units or a government program to build dozens of government buildings such as schools, hospitals and clinics is being considered, a local production facility can help reduce project costs and accelerate project completion.
