The Building Exhibition 2000 at the RDS last week wasn't all about soffits and facias. It was an Aladdin's cave for anyone interested in the construction industry and had a few gems among its 300-plus indoor stands.

One stand hard to miss was that of Fortress Industries, which featured a giant £4,000 room divider which on one side was sober grey and white with a plastic finish, perfect for a conference room, and on the other was black enamel steel with full-size decorative nudes, which wouldn't look out of place in a hotel. The dividers, called Espero Movable Walls, come in various sizes and finishes with different levels of sound reduction.

"We have a wide range of clientele and every project is made to measure," says John Taylor of Fortress Industries, which is based in Belfast but has an office in Balbriggan, Co Dublin. "Public bodies use them as office dividers, schools use them to create an extra classroom and they are also in demand with community centres, creches and rugby clubs."

Brendan McGeever of Metal Door Frames Ltd in Mullingar says his father inspired him to develop his range of metal door frames, which has been patented here and is about to be patented in England. "He was a builder and I saw how much work was involved in planing a wooden door to make it fit."

His metal door frames come with anti-slamming buffers and are manufactured from zincanneal which, says Mr McGeever, doesn't warp, twist or rust and is easily installed. Unlike their wooden counterparts they come with hinges, lock pockets and door stops. They don't need any preparation before painting and cost just £37 each.

"They are perfect for places like shopping centres or offices where ordinary doors would normally suffer a lot of wear and tear and get the edges knocked off them. Our doors are very sturdy but we can give them a wooden finish, which some clients prefer."

The construction industry has been slow to make full use of new technologies, says George Boyle of Buiding Software Services (BSS) in Bray, but that is beginning to change. BSS has a new Site Manager software package for Palm Pilot which costs £149 and is aimed at construction managers, supervisors and builders.

It can be put to a number of uses on site such as to create purchase orders, to send e-mails, to keep track of goods delivered and to keep a database of suppliers and contractors. All data can then be transferred to a PC.

The Pyramid Liner, from Straight Lines UK, is for anyone who needs to draw perfect straight lines. It is a sheet of paper with 400 pyramids per centimetre which slots under the first page of a sketchpad.

Other exhibitors included the Health & Safety Authority, De Walt Power Tools, Valentine Ladders, Manpower Construction Recruitment, National Map Centre, S&N Granite, Bord Gais and IJM Timber Engineering Ltd.

The nine outdoor exhibitors included Mason Hydraulics and Ace Machinery.