Ash Grove Cement, Cemex, CalPortland Cement, and LafargeHolcim have received awards from the Portland Cement Association.
The winners of the 2017 Portland Cement Association Safety Innovation Awards, which recognize creative safety-enhancing projects in the cement industry are:
Milling/Grinding Category
Winner: Ash Grove Cement, Montana City, Mont.
Grinding Media Loading Hopper: Ash Grove’s Montana City employees designed and built a grinding media hopper which is loaded on the ground (with a skid steer), lifted into place by a hoist and discharges grinding media directly into the mills. This new hopper has eliminated the uncontrolled release of grinding media while charging the mills, and decreased the total amount of time for this operation.
Pyroprocessing
Winner: Cemex USA, Balcones, Texas
Upgraded personal protective equipment (PPE) for hotwork: A preheater task force was commissioned to review the company’s procedures and PPE when working around preheaters. This task force included representatives from every CEMEX facility throughout the U.S. Numerous tests and extensive research were done on the different types of protective clothing and equipment. These tests mimicked kiln feed making contact with an employee while he/she worked on the preheaters. Several new types of PPE were identified as better performing materials. The task force then created a visual PPE selection chart of the upgraded equipment for all CEMEX employees.
Distribution Category
Winner: CalPortland Cement Terminal, Portland, Ore.
Railcar Opener Mounted on Bucket Elevator: CalPortland employees found a better way to perform a bucket elevator mechanical inspection while the elevator is locked out. These employees found that when they mounted a railcar opener on a bucket elevator, they could advance the elevator chain very slowly for inspection and still maintain control of the energy sources. They were able to complete three complete bucket elevator inspections in 2016 and plan to do regular inspections on all bucket elevators to prevent catastrophic failures in future.
Winner: LafargeHolcim US, Corporate Program, Chicago
Pneumatic Hatch Program for Tanker Trucks: LafargeHolcim (LH) has been operating its pneumatic tanker fleet with pneumatic hatches for some time. These hatches completely eliminate the need for a driver to climb on top of his truck, and also reduce the time to load a truck by six minutes. In 2016, LH launched a financial incentive program for contract haulers which included an incentive towards the installation of pneumatic hatches on their trucks. The company surpassed their initial goal of 5 percent of all loads transported by contractors, by achieving an 11 percent participation rate for the year.
