South African surface mining industry association Aspasa says its special task team is moving rapidly to formalise standards to benefit both sand and stone producers and their customers.
Asapa says the standards could soon make disagreements over the quality of sand and stone delivered on site a thing of the past.
Since the establishment of a special technical committee on quality management, the association adds that it has made progress in addressing quality issues internally among its members, as well as assisting in the formulation of new national standards that will be used as a measure of quality among users of sand and aggregates.
Saartjie Duvenhage, chairperson of Aspasa’s technical committee on quality management, said that a number of major strides have already been made to narrow the gap between customer’s expectations and the actual ability of producers to supply the required materials.
“First and foremost, we have defined quality and what it means to everyone on the entire supply chain, from extraction, to processing and delivery to the customer’s site," said Duvenhage. "In our case we define this as a product that meets a certain measure of excellence which is free from deficiencies and significant variations.
“To assist our members to achieve this, we have subsequently introduced our own quick guide to quality management. The 123 of Quality Management for Material Producers guide is designed to act as a guideline to quality management and explains the concept with eight steps for members to successfully implement their own systems."
She added that the guide walks members through getting buy-in from all levels of staff, determining customer requirements, commissioning of an appropriate laboratory, sampling and testing, reporting, dealing with non-conformances and communication.
"If members successfully implement the 123 system, they will be well on their way to producing quality products,” says Saartjie.
She adds that the committee is furthermore assisting in the revision of South African National Standards codes including SANS 1083, as well as the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) revisions of the G-materials guides and the distribution of guidance specification of G-materials.
The committee has also appointed Barry Pearce to represent Aspasa on a number of relevant technical forums including SABS roads, concrete aggregates and SANS 1083 committees.
