SHIMPAC® – Extending Asset Life Through Smarter Maintenance

Across the UK’s highways network, local authorities and contractors face a constant balancing act.

Budgets remain under pressure, road user expectations continue to rise, and the demand for resilient infrastructure has never been greater. Against this backdrop, the challenge is not simply how to repair assets when they fail, but how to maximise their lifespan whilst minimising the cost and disruption associated with maintenance.

SHIMPAC® has long been recognised as a solution that helps achieve exactly that.

As a fully engineered ironwork seating and levelling system, SHIMPAC® is designed to eliminate many of the common causes of premature ironwork failure.

Through exceptional durability and resistance to the immense shear and compression forces generated by modern traffic, SHIMPAC® enables local authorities and contractors to adopt a smarter approach to asset management.

The result is a two-fold benefit – reducing the need for future maintenance through correct installation from day one, whilst also providing the ideal solution when urgent maintenance interventions are required.

Prevention Over Cure: Maintenance Before It Happens

Every maintenance visit comes at a cost.

Whether it is labour, traffic management, road closures, machinery, materials or disruption to the travelling public, every return visit to a defect represents additional expenditure that could potentially have been avoided.

SHIMPAC® has been engineered specifically to break that cycle.

By ensuring ironwork is seated and levelled with millimetre precision, the system removes the movement that often leads to deterioration around covers and frames. This prevents the formation of gaps that allow water ingress, one of the primary causes of carriageway failure and pothole formation.

The long-term durability of SHIMPAC® means installations remain stable and effective throughout the road’s maintenance cycle and often well beyond. In fact, some of the earliest SHIMPAC® installations remain in service more than 35 years later.

For local authorities, this means fewer repeat visits, fewer emergency repairs and greater confidence that maintenance budgets are being invested wisely.

In short, SHIMPAC® significantly reduces the need for continued intervention by getting it right first time.

When Disaster Strikes: Urgent Maintenance

Of course, not every maintenance requirement can be prevented.

When emergency works or urgent interventions are required, speed becomes critical. Road closures must be kept to a minimum, disruption reduced and operatives protected from unnecessary exposure to live traffic.

This is another area where SHIMPAC® excels.

The system can be installed in a fraction of the time required by traditional methods, allowing roads to be reopened quickly and safely. With installation times measured in minutes rather than hours, maintenance teams can complete more work within available closure windows whilst reducing disruption for road users.

The speed of installation delivers important safety benefits. Less time spent working in the carriageway means reduced exposure to live traffic and fewer risks for operatives. Equally, shorter road closures reduce congestion and improve safety for the travelling public.

As local authorities continue to focus on network efficiency and contractor performance, solutions that reduce both duration of works and workforce exposure are becoming increasingly important.

Introducing READY-PAC™ – Where Convenience Meets Performance

Building on the proven success of the SHIMPAC® system, the company is now undertaking a rollout of its READY-PAC™.

Designed with convenience and efficiency in mind, READY-PAC™ takes the simplicity of SHIMPAC® even further by providing pre-prepared packs of ROADSHIMS® ready for installation.

Each pack contains the appropriate ROADSHIMS® configuration required for a specific installation, removing the need for preparation work on site and allowing maintenance teams to work even more efficiently.

For emergency maintenance scenarios, this offers significant advantages. Operatives can arrive on site with everything prepared and ready to install, reducing delays, improving consistency and helping ensure that repairs are completed as quickly as possible.

Supporting Better Long-Term Outcomes

The highways sector increasingly demands solutions that deliver more than a temporary fix. Local authorities need products that protect budgets, improve safety, support sustainability objectives and maximise the lifespan of infrastructure assets.

SHIMPAC® delivers on all fronts.

By preventing failures and providing a rapid response solution when maintenance is required, SHIMPAC® supports a smarter approach to asset management.

In an industry where every minute, every pound and every closure matters, SHIMPAC® continues to demonstrate why prevention remains better than cure – whilst ensuring that when maintenance is needed, it can be delivered quickly, safely and effectively.