Dorset: SMD launches mobile phone app for architects and designers

The Dorset company known for shaping Britain’s skyline has developed a unique new mobile phone app for architects, designers and engineers. Innovative metal decking firm SMD has launched SMD Elements Span Check initiative this month.

The free-to-download app is a calculation tool enabling users run simple span checks on Poole-based SMD’s range of floor deck profiles. 

The easy-to-use app, believed to be the only type of its kind on the market, helps users to understand the options available for each product and what can be achieved with different types of specification.

Downloadable for Android and Apple devices, the app has been designed by SMD marketing and brand manager Pete Watkins and created by Bournemouth digital agency Adido.

Its launch coincides with the release of Tower Park-headquartered SMD’s new R51+ floor deck profile, allowing designers look up the new product and check the new spans.

Watkins said: “The idea to create a multi-feature application for internal company and external client use is very much part of SMD’s ongoing development programme as we strive to offer the best possible service.

“It complements our long-established and well-used SMD Elements® Design software brand which is downloadable from the SMD website for Windows desktop use which enables more in-depth calculations.

“However, everyone works from a mobile these days, and because time is often of the essence, our app is set to prove invaluable for designers and engineers in allowing them to run checks quickly.”

As well as the main Span Check tool for determining maximum deck spans, the new app features written technical help and a form for submitting queries, links to downloadable PDFs, website literature and FAQs.

Using a table of data, the app returns maximum span length results based on options entered by the user. The app will be regularly updated to account for developments on new products. Users can sign up to get notification from SMD, through the app, on latest company and product developments.

Andy Headington, chief executive officer of Adido, said: “We were excited about the interesting challenge of building a distinct working tool for a construction company and it was very much a collaborative effort to make Pete’s design a reality.

“We have been behind the launch of a great deal of successful, mass appeal marketing projects but this sector specific niche app product was unusual for us inasmuch as it was devised in part for use on building sites with little or no internet access.”

Headington, whose company headquarters is in Lorne Park Road, Bournemouth, added: “Although we work nationally and internationally at Adido, it is also a great pleasure to link with businesses across our Dorset and Hampshire heartland and to know that our efforts are helping local companies grow.”

SMD, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2017, is one of only a handful of British firms to design, manufacture and install its own steel decking systems and employs more than 100 staff at locations across the UK, including Leeds, Nottingham and Glasgow.

The firm’s steel decking has been used in such iconic buildings as the Shard and the Olympic Park in London, Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium, Cheltenham racecourse and terminals at Heathrow Airport.

The company, which has a satellite office in Dubai and a design base in India, was founded in Ringwood in 1987 has thousands of completed contracts to its name and more than 200 construction projects locally, including at the RNLI, Poole, Bournemouth Airport and Bournemouth University.