of aggregate operations for Texas and New Mexico, shares
details of the water reclaim and sand plant at the company’s
Balcones Quarry. Photo by Kevin Yanik
The concept of change, particularly being open to change, was a common theme at this year’s Quarry Academy in San Antonio.
Aggregate producers and contractors everywhere are undoubtedly resistant to change in some form. Many have processed materials a certain way for years, maybe decades. And they’ll tell you that their approach to material processing works effectively. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” they’ll say.
But what if your approach to processing – the one that you regularly employ – was “broke” from the start? Odds are your approach isn’t completely “broke,” but minor improvements can surely be made to every production process.
Consider how the processes related to producing materials at your operation were instilled in your mind and validated over the years. Often, the rationale for doing something a certain way is because “this is how we’ve always done things around here.” Or, maybe an old-timer taught you a certain way, and you’ve methodically been following that person’s lead ever since.
Neither rationale necessarily means you’re right or that you’re processing material efficiently. So maybe it’s time for a change.
“At the scale house, it’s ‘X’ dollars per ton,” says Jeff Heinemann, vice president at Sandvik Mining & Rock Technology, whose company developed Quarry Academy with Dyno Nobel. “It doesn’t matter how you get there. All that really matters is what that cost is at the scale house.”
Creating change
Fortunately, aggregate producers and contractors aren’t limited to making improvements at the feed stage where they crush or grind materials. They can institute process improvements up and down their respective value chain.
While a number of portable operators will zero in on crushing or grinding as the step that really nets them profits, the activities before and after sometimes provide benefits that are overlooked.
Two areas referenced at Quarry Academy where aggregate producers could elevate their dollars per ton are drilling and blasting. Not every portable plant operator drills and blasts, of course, but one example Dyno Nobel and Sandvik representatives cited translates nicely to all operations.
“You could be looking at hours, if not days, to process rock if you don’t [drill and blast] right,” says Scott Giltner, senior project engineer at DynoConsult, a division of Dyno Nobel.
C&D recyclers face similar raw-material deficiencies when demolition debris is mixed with undesirables. Ultimately, this leads to more money being put into processing and less emerging on the back end of production.
Still, instituting change is easier said than done.
“The challenge for everybody is that things have been done the same way for so long,” says Bill Hissem, senior mining engineer at Sandvik Mining & Rock Technology in North America. “But improvement means change. Change means habits need to shift. That’s the challenge.”