AFRISAM PRIORITISING QUALITY AMID TOUGH TIMES FOR CONSTRUCTION SECTOR
Cement, ready-mix concrete and aggregates company AfriSam is focusing on producing high-quality cements, concretes and aggregates, as well as offering a timely, reliable service to clients, amid difficult economic and construction-sector times, says AfriSam construction materials North regional manager Zielas du Preez.
AfriSam took journalists on a tour of its Jukskei granite quarry, in Midrand, which was founded in a rural setting in the 1950s but operates in a built-up and fast-developing area since 2016, to showcase its quality control, safety and environmental protection initiatives.
The company highlighted the measures and precautions it takes to ensure that dust and noise are within compliance levels, as well as blasting technology and techniques used to control the vibrations and mitigate any danger during blasts.
Water from the base of the quarry is used to suppress dust on haulage roads. This drains back into the quarry; water sprayers in crushing equipment reduce dust liberation, and initiatives to reduce noiseare in place.
The quarry is next to a busy helicopter pad, and it sends communiques to warn of potential dust and when a no-fly zone is in place above the quarry while a blast is carried out. Similarly, the Jukskei quarry team communicates constantly with all the stakeholders and building managers of its neighbours, which include industrial warehouses and corporate offices.
Further, mine engineers have worked to finish mining on the northern faces that are nearest to its neighbours. Quarrying will proceed mainly in an easterly direction to limit the impact on neighbours from blasting.
“We use electronic blasting technology, which, while more expensive than conventional blasting technologies, enables us to simulate and then design blasts to ensure that vibrations are kept well below specific limits,” says Du Preez.
The company adheres to US blast management and consulting standards, and all its operations are managed in accordance with ISO 9001 quality management standards.
Further, the company takes precautions to limit fly rocks and noise generation during blasting, such as placing materials in and on top of blast holes – called stemming – and digitally simulating blasts to verify blast designs and expected parameters, which helps it to control blasts and their impacts.
The Jukskei site also has two ready-mix plants, which supply developments in Sandton and Midrand, as well as the Gauteng region, says AfriSam North and Central operations manager Kevin Naidoo.
He showcased the technical accuracy of the ready-mix batch plants, as well as the controls to ensure that the correct ratios of ingredients and additives according to the engineer’s specifications are mixed and dispatched for clients.
AfriSam has a central fleet management and control room to ensure that the trucks are loaded and dispatched to clients timeously, as well as to manage any client delays and ad hoc requests.
AfriSam Ready-Mix Gauteng, North West and Mpumalanga regional manager Russell Wearne notes the importance of the company’s ready-mix operations to use cement and aggregates from its operations.
“Market conditions are currently severely depressed. We can produce more than four-million cubic metres a year of ready-mix, but we are producing far less at the moment.”
AfriSam is focusing on ensuring reliable supply of high-quality products during the tough times. It has proven capabilities to do specialised mixes to meet demanding project specifications, such as the PwC tower in Waterfall City, in Midrand, which required that the concrete be poured into shuttering that was continuously raised to build the central tower, he says.
“Our in-house research and development capabilities stand us in good stead to develop specialised mixes required by civil engineers, developers and mining houses, and we are a preferred supplier for most of the regional large-scale developments.
Pricing wars will only lead to poor-quality products and projects, and AfriSam is focused on ensuring that we develop our personnel’s technical skills in preparation for when development accelerates again,” concludes Wearne. http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/afrisam-focuses-on-quality-amid-constrained-quantity-2019-11-15
