Displaying items by tag: Safety

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has announced the winners of the 2018 Safety Innovation Awards. The awards recognise creative safety-enhancing projects in the cement industry. Winners were determined by a panel of judges that evaluated submissions from across the country for milling/grinding, distribution, pyroprocessing and general facility.

Cemex USA’s Miami plant Florida won the milling/grinding category with its new process to load ball mills. The site developed a new mill loading process that uses a small hopper for grinding media, and an incline transport system with buckets to convey the grinding media directly to the mill. This new system eliminates the interaction between the employee and the machine, reduces the number of people needed to load the mill from five to two, and eliminates the need for employees to stand on top of the mill. This new system also improves mill loading rates from seven drums/hr to 30 drums/hr.

Cemex USA’s Houston operations in Texas won the pyroprocessing category for it use of drones for hazardous inspections. It has implemented a system for using protected air drones to inspect enclosed and confined spaces. Visual inspections of enclosed areas (preheater towers, tanks, silos, process ducts, etc) normally require intrusive equipment, long delays for system cooling, and placement of employees on scaffolding in confined spaces. These drones utilise an outer protective cage to minimize the risk of breakage due to impact. The drone program has eliminated the risk of putting staff in confined spaces, reduced the cost of scaffolding, and reduced the overall time for inspections.

LafargeHolcim US’ Corporate Program in Chicago won the distribution category for its X-Factor barge cover. It has developed a process for barge cover removal that reduces the risk of falls from employees stepping on to the barge. The X-Factor barge cover, developed over the last three years with a contractor, uses the latest technology and a no-touch design to allow a crane operator to perform all functions associated with barge lid handling without additional human assistance. Barge workers will no longer be required to step onto the barge to remove or replace barge covers, eliminating a potential fall risk.

Ash Grove Cement’s Louisville plant in Nebraska won the general facility category for its use of magnets as duct hole patches. Ash Grove has developed a hole-patch technique using magnets. Magnetic patches are quick, simple, and effective at preventing or limiting the release of materials from holes created in ducts caused by abrasion, leading to a cleaner plant, reduced slip, trip and fall risks, and fewer related Mine Safety and Health Administration housekeeping citations.

Cemex USA’s Brooksville in Florida also won the general facility category for its filters moved to ground level project. It redesigned the blower housings to move the filter from the top of the blower housings to an easily accessible location at ground level. The redesigned blower housing eliminates the need for employees to climb up and down a ladder, reducing overexertion and fall hazard.

US: Three Mondi Industrial Bags plants in North America have won awards for plant safety from the Paper Shipping Sack Manufacturers’ Association (PSSMA). The winning plants were Louisville in Kentucky, Arcadia in Louisiana and Salt Lake City in Utah. The Arcadia and Louisiana plants also achieved zero incidents rates in 2016. The awards were presented at the organisation’s seminar in Vancouver, Washington in April 2017.

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has announced the winners of its Chairman’s Safety Performance, Safety Innovation and Energy and Environment Awards. The awards recognise outstanding safety performance in the manufacturing of Portland cement, creative safety-enhancing projects in the cement industry and outstanding environmental and community relations respectively.

“The facilities recognised today are to be congratulated for their safety achievements,” said Allen Hamblen, PCA chairman and president and chief executive officer of CalPortland, in relation to the Safety Performance Awards.

Winners of the 2017 PCA Chairman’s Safety Performance Awards:

Category: Less than 226,000 hours
Buzzi Unicem USA – Chattanooga, Tennessee
LafargeHolcim US – Morgan, Utah
Lehigh Hanson, Inc. – Tehachapi, California

Category: 226,001 - 289,000 hours
Ash Grove Cement – Foreman, Arkansas
GCC Permian – Odessa, Texas
Lehigh Hanson, Inc. – Leeds, Alabama

Category: 289,001 - 563,000 hours
Cemex USA – Brooksville, Florida
Cemex USA – New Braunfels, Texas
Martin Marietta Materials – New Braunfels, Texas

Winners of the 2017 Safety Innovation Awards:

Milling/Grinding
Ash Grove Cement, Montana City, Montana

Pyroprocessing
Cemex USA, Balcones, Texas

Distribution
CalPortland Cement Terminal, Portland, Oregon
LafargeHolcim US, Corporate Program, Chicago

Winners of the 2017 Energy and Environment Awards:

Energy Efficiency
Cemex USA Construction Materials, Pacific, LLC, Victorville, California

Environmental Performance
Cemex USA Construction Materials, Pacific, LLC, Victorville, California

Land Stewardship
Continental Cement Company/Green America Recycling, Hannibal, Missouri

Outreach Winner
Mitsubishi Cement Corporation, Lucerne Valley, California

Canada: Lafarge Canada has clarified its role in supporting the Vision Zero road safety campaign following a city council meeting in Edmonton. The construction materials producer explained that its focus is on health and safety and that it is not intending to use its trucks to monitor the speed of other drivers. In a statement the company explained that as one of the largest trucking companies in Edmonton it has dozens of concrete trucks moving around the Greater Edmonton Area, interacting with vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Due to this the Zero Vision campaign caught its attention and it expressed its interest in supporting it including speed reduction measures and reducing heavy acceleration and braking in its fleet.

Following the meeting in mid-April 2017 local press including the Edmonton Sun newspaper reported remarks by Bruce Willmer, regional vice-president for Lafarge Canada that on-truck cameras could potentially be used to record speeding vehicles and that this information could be passed on to the authorities. The comments received a mixed response in the local media.

Nigeria: Lafarge Africa has launched an academy to train truck driver safety and fleet management. The launch event took place at the Ewekoro cement plant in Ogun state. The logistics academy is a follow-up project to a road safety project and drivers academy previously established by the cement producer to ensure sound safety culture, process efficiency and good performance among truck drivers, according to the Nigerian Guardian newspaper.

Puerto Rico: The US Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has fined Cemex Puerto Rico US$291,722 in penalties relating to 119 citations and orders issued for safety violations at the company’s Ponce Cement Plant and Cantera Canas mines. The cement producer must now implement enhanced safety measures at its three MSHA-regulated facilities in Puerto Rico.

The MSHA issued the citations and orders for a wide variety of violations, including obstructed and unsafe travel ways and workplaces, safety defects on mobile equipment and machinery, and unguarded machine parts. The settlement was approved on 7 June 2016.

In the settlement Cemex agrees to hire an independent external safety consultant knowledgeable about surface mining and cement plant operations to conduct annual, wall-to-wall employee safety audits of these three facilities over the next four years. It will also arrange for the MSHA’s Educational Field and Small Mine Services to teach a mine safety course and cement plant safety course to safety directors, assistant safety directors, area supervisors and foremen.

Nicaragua: For the seventh year in a row Cemex has been awarded a national prize as a 'leading business' for its industrial safety and hygiene management procedures by Nicaragua's National Council for Work Safety and Hygiene at the Ministry of Labour.

This continued recognition is linked to its programmes that encourage workers to report poor behaviour or unsuitable conditions that could otherwise lead to accidents. Cemex Nicaragua is on the verge of reaching zero incidents through more than 14,000hr of training per year.

Nicaragua: Cemex Nicaragua, has been awarded a national prize as a leading business for its industrial safety management procedures. The award was given by the National Council for Work Safety and Hygiene and refers to the firm's Canal plant in southwest Managua. The firm is building a new production unit in the northeast section of the same city at the moment. This new unit is due to begin operations early in 2015.

United Arab Emirates: Turkish cement producer Adana Cement has won an award for safety performance improvement at the 11th Annual DuPont Safety and Sustainability Awards, which took place in Dubai on 24 September 2013. Six award recipients were selected by an independent jury comprised of leading experts in occupational safety and sustainability.

Adana Cement was chosen for its efforts to create a safe work environment. In 2005 the company established an integrated OHSAS 18001-certified Safety Management System, before implementing further processes and improvements in 2008 after recognition that 96% of accidents were caused by dangerous behaviour, rather than conditions.

Together, these initiatives have had a profound effect in shaping a positive safety culture among employees. In particular, a multi-faceted approach, including behaviour-oriented site visits, accident information meetings, reward and sanction practices and a schedule of continuous training programmes, has resulted in a dramatic decrease in employee and sub-contractor accidents since 2008, based on statistics collected since 2003. A new record of 243 uninterrupted days without an accident was achieved in 2012, in a period when expanding production objectives were successfully met.

Pakistan: A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between Lafarge Pakistan Ltd and the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) for provision of health and safety training and awareness to all its members. Amr Reda, CEO of Lafarge Pakistan observed, "The cement industry operates in an environment with multiple types of hazards, making it our priority to ensure the safety of all people, working directly and indirectly, in it."

The APCMA welcomed the initiative and is encouraging all of its members to not only study and apply these safety standards and take the initiative to share the best practices across their organisations. Aizaz Sheikh, CEO of Kohat Cement and Chairman of APCMA stated, "APCMA is thankful to Lafarge Pakistan for coming forward with the idea and are happy to embrace this initiative. The proposal was unanimously approved by the council and the APCMA looks forward to further initiatives under this MoU".

Amr Reda expressed his delight on the APCMA agreement, saying, "We are happy to share our learning and best practices with other companies through the platform of the APCMA. As part of our long-term commitment to health and safety, Lafarge Pakistan will continue to impart knowledge and awareness on this subject to other industrial establishments in Pakistan."