Displaying items by tag: Aggregates Industries
Aggregate Industries obtains PAS 2080 verification
05 April 2019UK: Aggregate Industries, a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, has obtained PAS 2080 verification, a new Carbon Management in Infrastructure specification. PAS 2080 is the world’s first specification for managing whole-life carbon in infrastructure. Developed by the Construction Leadership Council’s Green Construction Board with the British Standards Institute (BSI), it provides a framework and guidance for measuring and managing carbon across the whole value chain.
“We can help designers at Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) stage to design lower carbon solutions. Our management systems (ISO 14001 and 50001) ensure consistent and reliable data collection, allowing our Carbon Managers to report embodied CO2 to other members of the value chain. Baseline data made available to the value chain allows carbon targets to be set at design phase and for performance to be monitored against these targets during project delivery. This will result in infrastructure with lower embodied carbon,” said Paul McCaffrey, Sustainable Products Manager at Aggregate Industries.
Aggregate Industries achieves ISO 44001 certification
22 March 2019UK: Aggregate Industries, a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, has achieved recommendation for ISO 44001 certification for Collaborative Business Relationship Management Systems, awarded by the British Standards Institute. The certification was awarded company-wide to Aggregate Industries for demonstrating relationship management across a variety of projects, which include a multitude of internal business areas and external partners.
“I am incredibly proud of achieving this certification. ISO 44001 is quickly becoming a prerequisite for highways, infrastructure and major projects which specify requirements for the effective identification, development and management of collaborative business relationships,” said Paddy Murphy, Managing Director of Contracting at Aggregate Industries.
UK: Wincanton has won a five-year deal with Aggregate Industries for the distribution of concrete products from a majority of its UK manufacturing sites. Under the new agreement, logistics firm Wincanton will operate a dedicated fleet of specialised vehicles, backed up by its national network, from 10 factories to customers across the country. This deal is in addition to two existing contracts, which cover distribution of bulk and packed cement from Aggregate Industries’ Cauldon works and the provision of Readymix assets.
"We have witnessed Wincanton’s ability to deliver on major national contracts at our Cauldon bulk operation. We have also seen how its commitment to continuous improvement can generate material benefits across the business. We are looking forward to the Wincanton team joining our concrete products operation," said Shaun Elliott, Head of Logistics, Concrete Products at Aggregate Industries.
UK: Aggregate Industries has launched a new product range of high early strength concretes, specifically designed for use in structural, void-fill, pavement and track bed applications. The Strike+ range is available in four different strength settings in various levels of consistency, making it suitable for use with a number of placement methods including pump, skip and direct. The range also offers properties, including high resistance to chlorides, low surface absorption, low shrinkage and high freeze-thaw resistance.
“With a greater onus on contractors to deliver ever more complex builds to tighter budgets and reduced deadlines, speed, efficiency and durability during the construction process has never been more critical. That’s why we’ve launched our new Strike+ range of high early strength concretes,” said David Porter, Area Manager Concrete (East Midlands) at Aggregate Industries.
Strike+ products are manufactured and delivered using volumetric concrete mixers, with water only added to the mix at the point of use. The ranges consist of specially blended binders, PC52.5N CEM1 (BSEN 197) and carefully selected concrete aggregates (BSEN 1260).
Lafarge Cement gains ISO50001 energy management certification in UK
06 February 2019UK: Lafarge Cement, part of Aggregate Industries, has achieved BS EN ISO50001:2018 in Energy Management Systems after demonstrating its on-going commitment to energy efficiency. The certification requires companies to show continuous improvement in reducing the energy intensity of their operations.
Aggregate Industries, Innovatium and the University of Birmingham work on liquid air energy storage system
05 February 2019UK: A consortium comprising Aggregate Industries, Innovatium and the University of Birmingham has gained funding from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to test a liquid air energy storage (LAES) energy efficiency technology under the government’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA) programme. The IEEA programme, administered by the Carbon Trust on behalf of BEIS, will provide nearly Euro0.4m towards delivering a new compressed air system utilising LAES technology from initial laboratory testing to full operation at Aggregate Industries’ Bardon Hill quarry in Leicestershire.
PRISMA (Peak Reduction by Integrated Storage and Management of Air) by Innovatium is a LAES technology that stores energy in liquid air form to provide compressed air, allowing inefficient partially loaded, variable-demand compressors to be turned off, thus improving the total system efficiency by up to 57%. The PRISMA system will bring together a latent energy cold storage tank, filled with a phase change material (PCM) to store thermal energy, and a number of other off-the-shelf components to form a system that will work with Aggregate Industries’ existing compressed air network. The research group says that the integration of the equipment and components in an industrial setting, for the provision of compressed air, has never been attempted before.
“The project will help to address the ‘energy trilemma’ of managing energy efficiency, energy cost and energy security by: significantly improving the energy efficiency of our compressed air system; managing electricity costs by running the compressors out-of-hours, when electricity is cheaper; and helping to smooth and reduce the peak electrical demand on site. We are therefore very excited to be the first industrial partner to install the PRISMA system at our Bardon Hill quarry in Leicestershire,” said Richard Eaton, Energy Manager at Aggregate Industries.
The 24-month project will involve the development of the PCM at the University of Birmingham’s School of Chemical Engineering as well as the design, manufacture and assembly of multiple system components by Innovatium before installation of the system at Bardon Hill. The PRISMA Project has currently only been deployed in a simulated environment. Following successful delivery of the project, this scalable technology has multi-sectoral applications for compressed air systems both in the UK and globally. In the UK, the compressed air market is estimated at 1.3GW of installed electrical capacity across around 4500 sites and over 55,000 individual compressor units.
Lafarge Cement adds Rapid Set Cement to product range in UK
04 January 2019UK: Lafarge Cement, part of the Aggregate Industries business, has introduced Rapid Set Cement to its packed product range. It is an Ordinary Portland Cement containing calcium aluminate for rapid hardening. The product is designed for use in screeds and renders to prepare wall and floor surfaces prior to installing most tile types. It’s suitable for dry and wet installations, including swimming pools, and can be pumped for fast application. It is available in 25kg paper bags and is a quality-assured BS EN 197-1 CEM II, cement carrying CE marking.
“This new product follows significant investment over the last 18 months in expanding our portfolio of packed cement products. All of our products are designed to offer a solution to everyday problems faced by the trade. Rapid Set Cement ensures a strong, durable high quality finish in a fraction of the time compared with standard cement,” said Jamie Stratford, National Sales Manager at Lafarge Cement.
US: Aggregate Industries, a US subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, has secured the contract to provide concrete for the US$2bn Minneapolis-area Southwest Light Rail Transit (LRT) extension of the Metro Green Line. The new line will run 14.5 miles from downtown Minneapolis to the suburb of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and require construction of 16 new stations, plus the rail infrastructure itself. The project will require an estimated 0.30Mm3 of ready-mix concrete. It includes the construction of 44 structures, 29 new bridges, two cut and cover tunnels, six pedestrian tunnels, 15 at-grade crossings, 110 retaining walls and over 45,000m of track.
Guy Edwards appointed head of Aggregate Industries
12 December 2018UK: Aggregate Industries UK has appointed Guy Edwards as its chief executive officer (CEO) starting in January 2019. He succeeds François Petry, who was recently appointed Country CEO of Lafarge France and Market Head for France and Belgium.
Edwards holds over 30 years of experience in the construction industry, with 25 years of this in the UK. He is currently CEO for the company’s Aggregates and Construction Materials (ACM) business in the US. Over the years, he has held a variety of senior roles within Aggregate Industries, both in the UK and US. In 2013, Guy served as a UK Executive Committee member responsible for European operations and, in 2014, was named chief operating officer (COO) for the AI US business.
Edwards received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Leeds University in England, graduating with honours in 1988. He has also completed the International Leadership Program at the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland.
UK: Aggregate Industries has signed a Euro3.3m deal with Siemens for technology and training services.
The agreement positions Siemens as Aggregate Industries’ preferred technology supplier across the company’s 330 UK sites. The partnership is intended to improve efficiency, make maintenance savings, and reduce the company’s carbon footprint. Siemens technology solutions include inverter drives, gearboxes, motors and control panels.
Siemens will also provide access to training and education facilities for all Aggregate Industries apprentices at Stephenson College in Coalville, Leicestershire. The focus on training will be supported regionally with Siemens supplying safety panels, which are to be utilised for staff training sessions across Aggregate Industries’ regional site network.
“This agreement positions Siemens as our preferred UK technology supplier, ensuring that we benefit from enhanced operational efficiencies over the long-term. This will deliver cost savings and improve system reliability. The technology solutions we will install will also help us reach our sustainability goals, as we seek to reduce the impact we have on the environment,” said Gerard Cantwell, Head of Procurement Europe at Aggregate Industries.