Manufacturing
Issue No. 1 - July/August 2001
Concrete issues - Adelaide Brighton Cement
adelaide brighton cement
It was a critical capital investment decision and the options quickly narrowed down to one: expand production at ABC’s head office, Birkenhead. Next task: figure out how to double production at a cement mill located on a busy waterfront, surrounded by Port Adelaide-Enfield Council ratepayers not likely to welcome industrial expansion next door.
Fast forward to May, 2001 and ABC’s first week of serious production from the Birkenhead No 6 Mill. The refurbished 40-year-old mill is running well, and is ahead of schedule in preparing to take up the burden when the Geelong plant shuts on 30 June.
The project has had no fanfare, no disruptions and has gone virtually unnoticed outside the circle of people involved in its concept, approval and construction. It has been quick to fruition, used capital efficiently and has made Birkenhead a more capable manufacturing site as well as increasing its production volume.
In short, the best kind of capital work.
The basis of the project’s success has been a fruitful partnership between ABC and engineering consultants, PPK Environment and Infrastructure. Their agreement, struck in September 1999, pertains to all aspects of ABC’s engineering work, not just the major project — the cement mill job.
Effectively, this continuing agreement is a very productive example of outsourcing, modelled on a concept pioneered in the UK in the 1970s. ABC ‘hires’ from PPK whatever amount of engineering resource is needed for the work at hand. Anywhere from two to 20 PPK engineers work on-site with ABC. This creates a very close working relationship between client and engineer, more or less eliminating the wasteful, back-and-forth cycle of brief and proposal. Instead, the team works together and determines holistic solutions to actual problems on the ground — not just those anticipated in the client’s brief.
From this partnering relationship has flowed a series ...
