Displaying items by tag: Holcim Romania

Romania: Holcim Romania plans to spend Euro10m on automation and digitisation upgrades to its plants. The project will focus on its integrated plants at Alesd and Compulung, according to the Ziarul Financiar newspaper. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim operates three cement plants in the country.

Romania: The Competition Council says it has found irregularities in the cement market. Following an investigation started in the autumn of 2018 it has revealed that the country’s three major producers – Holcim, CRH and HeidelbergCement – were operating with high profit margins and similar market share, according to Business News Europe. It noted that geographic distribution of customers around the three companies’ production facilities might support a hypothesis of market collusion. It also reported similar production capacity utilisation rates between the main producers despite different production capacities.

The Competition Council has not drawn any conclusions from the report. Previously, it said that if it does find any evidence of cartel-like behaviour it could apply a fine of up to 10% of company turnover.

Romania: Mădălina Gogorici has been appointed as the Health and Safety Manager at Holcim Romania, a new position within the company. A biochemistry graduate from the University of Bucharest with a Master’s degree in Ecology and Sustainable Development she holds over 20 years of experience in the field.

Romania: Holcim Romania has opened a Euro0.5m cement terminal in the town of Roman in Neamț County. The new unit will mainly supply cement to customers in the Moldovan region of the country. The 13,120m2 terminal has a railway connection and loading equipment for both bulk and bagged cement.

Romania: Veronica Dobre has been appointed as the new Communication Manager at Holcim Romania. She succeeds Ioana Borangic who worked for the company for six years.

Dobre, aged 35 years, holds a Public Relations degree from the UK Chartered Institute of Public Relations and graduated from Political Sciences as well as Communication and Public Relations at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies of Bucharest. She started her career at a public relations agency then worked for more than 10 years in the pharmaceutical industry, building experience in corporate and brand communications.

Romania: Holcim Romania has extended its range of bagged cements to better address the needs of the local market. Its new bagged range comprises: Structo Plus 40 kg, Structo Plus 20kg, Structo 40kg, Extra Dur 52 40kg and Tenco 40kg. They have been chosen to meet customer demands for aesthetics, shorter setting time, lower costs, higher strength and durability.

“The new range of cement bags is the best proof of how Holcim Romania understands and contributes for the development of the construction sector, by implementing and offering innovation and sustainability in the market through tailored and cost-effective solutions,” said Sofiane Benmaghnia, CEO Holcim Romania.

Romania: Sofiane Benmaghnia has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of Holcim Romania effective from 1 April 2016. He will replace François Petry, who has became the CEO of Aggregates Industries, the LafargeHolcim subsidiary in the UK, in December 2015.

Benmaghnia, aged 39 years, has been the general manager of Meftah Cement Operations, Aggregates & Concrete in Algeria since 2011. Previously, he was the Chief Financial Officer of Lafarge Betoane si Agregate in the Middle East for three years. He joined LafargeHolcim group in 1999 as financial analyst.

Romania: Holcim Romania, part of LafargeHolcim, has initiated a national road safety programme to raise awareness of the importance of appropriate driving behaviour across the supply chain.

The three-year programme consists of series of valuable projects mainly aimed at reducing the number of human casualties and the number of critical incidents on the roads in Romania.
At global level, every year, road accidents kill over 1.3 million people and injure 20 - 25 million people, with injuries caused by traffic accidents being the main death cause among people between 15 and 29.

The national road safety programme launched by Holcim in Romania will comprise four main action directions, which will take place simultaneously and in which the company has invested over Euro100,000:

1. An education and involvement programme in the local communities;
2. A programme for raising awareness and training the companies providing transport services to Holcim Romania;
3. A series of focus groups for professional drivers;
4. An integrated journey management programme.

As part of the project dedicated to local communities, Holcim Romania introduced the educational project 'Safe Road – the ABC of the road' in 12 schools from four counties (Arges, Bihor, Cluj and Dambovita). The project is based on the road education curriculum developed in 2015 by the Ministry of Education and Scientific Research and helps pupils from the primary level to understand the traffic rules and how they can prevent road accidents.

The team in charge of managing the fleet providing transport services to Holcim Romania will also communicate directly on the importance of road safety, through a training programme that sets to align the road safety standards between Holcim Romania and the partner transport companies, starting from the statistics concerning the road incidents provided by the World Health Organisation.

The third project included in the road safety programme consists in focus groups with 550 professional drivers (employees of the companies that provide transport services for Holcim Romania), in order to encourage their involvement in raising awareness on the importance of road safety. The conclusions will be further processed by Holcim Health and Safety team and will be implemented in the fleet companies.
Through the fourth direction of action of the road safety programme, Holcim Romania aims to implement, in a sustainable manner, several viable measurement tools, which allow for an efficient management and for the diminution of road accidents which can occur in our supply chain.

"Holcim Romania permanently seeks to improve and develop the Health and Safety standards and culture among its employees. This supports our 'Zero harm' vision in all processes and activities. One of our major concerns is to comply with the traffic rules and we wish to contribute with this road safety programme to decreasing the number of fatal and critical accidents. We can do this only by changing the drivers' mentality and raising their awareness with regard to the traffic risks," said François Petry, CEO of Holcim Romania.

Romania: Holcim Romania will announce its new Chief Executive Officer shortly, as its current CEO, French Francois Petry, was put in charge of Agreggates Industries, LafargeHolcim's operations in the UK, from 1 December 2015.

Petry has run Holcim Romania for almost two years. He took the helm of the company on 1 February 2014, after having run France's Aggregates division since 2008. Holcim Romania runs two cement plants, one grinding plant, 14 concrete stations, three aggregates stations, two special binders stations and one cement terminal. It employs around 800 people.

Romania: Holcim Romania is officially launching Holcim Workshops, a programme to support vocational education among pupils. The main beneficiaries of this educational programme are the pupils from grades XI and XII in Alexandru Roman High School in Alesd, as well as the Technical High School in Câmpulung Muscel.

After a pilot module delivered in 2015, the programme will be further developed in 2016 and will include a theoretical component and a practical one, throughout five - six weeks. The pupils selected for the practical module will have the opportunity of a hands-on experience in Holcim plants in Alesd and Campulung, some of the most performing and sustainable cement plants within Holcim Group, based on the results of the Holcim Plant Awards, organised every year by Holcim Group.

"Our intention with Holcim Workshops is to support the pupils from the technical high schools in Holcim communities in Romania to become more familiar with the industrial environment. It is important for them to better discover their abilities and skills through in-depth theoretical and practical sessions delivered by our specialists and to gain confidence in their qualities, so as to become more easily integrated to the labour market. The programme also provides an answer to a real challenge felt on the Romanian market, which is the reduced number of skilled craftsmen, in any field of activity, because the number of vocational schools has diminished," said Mădălina Crăciunescu, Organization and Human Resources Director of Holcim Romania.