Cemex restructure brings criticism from civils firms

Civil engineering firms have hit out at the restructuring of Cemex's concrete ordering system after a string of late deliveries and quality problems.

The attacks come as Mexican-owned Cemex streamlines its UK operations, which will see 22 sales and shipping offices reduced to seven customer service centres by the end of 2007.

Laurie Cumming, procurement manager at John Reilly Civil Engineering, said: "The Thames Valley area is just a nightmare right now. They've closed plants, they've closed area offices. What they've got is skeletal compared to what it used to be."

The problems come at a time when concrete supply had looked to be improving, after months of shortages.

When CJ contacted other companies in the Thames Valley and southern regions, it found widespread dissatisfaction with the £9bn-turnover company.

A buyer from a second civil engineering company in the area said: "We've had lots of problems. I believe it's their new system. Normally people would go direct to the batch if they're ordering from site, and now they're not. It's taking longer things aren't getting to site on time."

Another buyer at a different firm indicated that he was having the same problem with the new system.

A fourth company said it had received several bad loads from Cemex recently. An employee said: "They tell us it's in the interests of efficiency, but we prefer regional offices. They've shut the Southampton office and moved it to Bristol. The Bristol office is not the best, and we've had a quality issue."

A spokeswoman from Cemex responded to the criticism, saying: "Cemex UK values customer feedback and is committed to offering excellent customer service.

"As part of a project to improve this element and strengthen the commercial effectiveness of our readymix and aggregates sectors, we have recently installed new customer service centres.

"We are in the process of stabilising the rising telephone traffic that this has generated, and have increased the number of customer service assistants to meet the demand. Cemex UK continually monitors product quality and we are not aware of any supply issues."

(Contract Journal, 8 August 2007, p 3)