CLIMATE CHANGE

New plant and equipment / RAP / Telogis

Across our Aggregates and Asphalt business unit an important area of focus has been maximising the use of recycled asphalt planings (RAP).

Asphalt recycling involves taking old/used asphalt and reworking it into new asphalt utilised as a new product. There is no difference in performance, however the environmental benefits are clear with a combination of less bitumen and less primary aggregate required. Across the South region teams are now using up to 50% recycled asphalt in production processes.

Building on this success in the South a national best practice visit was held at our Harper Lane site with teams from North and Scotland and Central and Wales regions learning how we can improve our recycled asphalt use.

Kevin Short, Industrial Footprint Manager, who organised the day, added “It was positive to see so much discussion between like minded people all with the goal of improving recycled asphalt usage for Tarmac. The use of recycled asphalt helps to control materials costs and conserve virgin aggregate for future generations – the more we can do the better for everyone”

Arnold Marsden, Senior Manager Manufacturing Excellence, also said: “It was great to see the teams from all three regions discussing how the South have improved RAP and how a key part is down to great teamwork. Everyone enjoyed the day and took away a number ideas that can be used to improve their site operations.”

In 2016 the South Region was able to increase Recycled Asphalt usage by 26%
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Key elements that have delivered this improvement are :
  1. Regular daily reviews, and challenging performance of individual teams weekly, this has helped maintain and improve the rate of usage.
  2. The Asphalt Optimisation program, rolled out to all Asphalt plants across the South now, has driven focus and highlighted unit led opportunities to improve recycled asphalt usage.
  3. The introduction of new recycled asphalt hubs and effective procurement and processing has managed material costs effectively. All teams are motivated to use recycled asphalt and it specifically helped the South Region meet its profitability targets for 2016.
  4. Key timely investment has support the growth. The new Harper Lane Asphalt Plant, covered storage (to minimise moisture in the recycled asphalt during the winter), and bitumen blending equipment (to support technical led recycled asphalt increases) have all helped deliver this improvement.

Across our mobile plant fleet we have been investing in a new telematics system. Piloted at Cairneyhill quarry in Lanarkshire this is now being rolled out across all our operations.

Telogis monitors what the sites mobile plant is doing on a day to day basis and reports on how efficiently and effectively equipment is being used.

Jack Marshall, Area Operations Manager, said “Telogis can monitor things like the engine running time or excess braking and speeding, so they can be better managed in the future. We’ve seen engine running times go down by around 10% overall, with idle time reduced by up to 30% on certain machines.