The Light Rebar Company® combines innovation, sustainability and digitalization in the production of BCR composite poles. Based on R&D, automation and academic partnerships, it has created efficient, traceable and sustainable processes, prepared for Industry 5.0, bringing Portuguese technology to the global market.
From Braga, aged 36, a civil engineer who graduated from the University of Minho, I soon realized that the fascinating world of engineering was my vocation and where my professional life would lie.
After five years working in the steel products trade, where I performed a wide range of functions across the entire institutional activity, I responded to the challenge I was given at the start of my job: to take the company’s activity into the 21st century! We started a program to digitize and optimize processes in all departments, with a single goal in mind: to make the most of human capital in order to respond to a market that is increasingly faster, more volatile and much more demanding, leaving routine tasks that don’t add value to machines.
It was within this business group that I accepted a new challenge: the industrialization of an innovative material for the construction industry. Thus began my collaboration with The Light RebarCompany®, of which I am proud to say I have been an integral part since the very first minute.
The destination was set: to take The Light Rebar Company® rod all over the world, delivering a top quality product with the lowest possible environmental impact.
The Beginning: a huge blank sheet of paper, but an inexorable will to make it happen.
The path was mapped out with the construction of a strategic plan based on quality, safety, technology and the digitalization of processes, a culture of excellence, social responsibility and sustainability.
A 5-year Technology & Product Roadmap was also developed, with new developments introduced every six months, based on forecasts of future market needs, scientific and technological advances in the field of composite materials, the evolution of manufacturing technologies and growing environmental policies to reduce the carbon footprint of the building materials market.
We began our activity with a large research and development component, supported by partners from the national academic, scientific and industrial community:
All of this fulfills the requirements of Industry 4.0, and is prepared to match Industry 5.0, focused on collaboration between human beings and intelligent machines and driven by three pillars: sustainability, resilience and a focus on human beings.
Today we can say that we can set up a plant anywhere in the world, with centralized management, delivering the same finished product, with the same quality as the one produced in our facilities.
We aim for nothing less than excellence!
A simple process for the operator, but technologically complex. At The Light RebarCompany® we believe that human capital should be preserved and used to add value, not just to perform routine tasks.
Our production is therefore ensured by automated equipment with centralized control, which guarantees repeatability of production and process conditions and minimizes manufacturing errors.
The focus of the operators is the supply of raw materials, the evaluation and quality control of the finished product and the principles of continuous improvement, and they are invited to present their suggestions for improvement in a safe, collaborative and helpful environment.
“Only humans can design, adapt and create”
To complement the human contribution, we have implemented an MES(Manufacturing Execution System) system integrated with the ERP, which allows us to plan and monitor production and equipment performance in real time, while simultaneously collecting a set of important data for the optimization of all production, traceability to the origin of the product and all correlation with business activity. From purchasing to commercial activity, including financial management, human resources, quality and internal logistics, with a great deal of direct involvement from top management.
This is a real interdepartmental bridge that can only be built within a united, dynamic team with a great spirit of mutual support. We are growing and we are all growing together.
At The Light Rebar Company® we are proud to say that we don’t have suppliers or customers, but partners, with whom we work every day from a perspective of collaboration and joint growth.
This collaboration allows us, whether through feedback on our products, in the form of challenges to develop new products or solutions, or the emergence of new or improved raw materials, to feed the Research and Development activity, in addition to all the lessons learned from our production activity.
All the know-how generated during the industrialization process once again fed into R&D activities, with a view to implementing improvements in the product, process and equipment, which in turn optimized production, allowing us to produce more, faster, with higher quality and less waste.
This led us to move on to the process of Our rod has been approved by LNEC (National Civil Engineering Laboratory) on a sustained basis, initially for non-structural applications, but with the aim of meeting all the requirements for structural applications. These applications will be possible in 2026, with the publication of the new Eurocode 2, which will provide for the use of FRP(Fibre Reinforced Polymers) in reinforced concrete structures.
The contributions of our partners, on the other hand, have opened up lines of development parallel to our TPR:
This closes the internal and integrated cycle of all stakeholders that allows us to leave our mark on the world, aligned with the commitment to a better and more sustainable future for all.
From an idea to a blank sheet of paper, through the top-of-the-range equipment designed and implemented by The Light Rebar Company® and its partners, to a highly dedicated team, all leading to a product of excellence, patented, and Portuguese, which translates into undeniable added value for a market undergoing global transformation.
From Guimarães to the world, with a smaller ecological footprint.
The Light Rebar Company® – Changing the world one rebar at a time.