Plant safety with new concrete production floor
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Plant safety with new concrete production floor |
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Problem Solving Article: Production Floor Repairs  Three of the six lines at the olive cannery fed into three Angelus Seamers and then into all metal, retort cooker baskets. The baskets could weigh up to a ton when fully loaded. The metal baskets were rolled around on the floor by hand when empty. Forklifts removed the fully loaded baskets to the retort loading area and returned with empty baskets. The floor in this area was a high forklift traffic area. The floor was cracked and broken in many places. The previous owners had not put much money into safety and upkeep prior to the plant shutdown and subsequent sale. Waste and cleaning water were on the floor continuously during production. A considerable amount of the water was passing through the cracks in the concrete and into the soil underneath. This water dissolved the earth and caused the soil to settle more in some places than others. The concrete floor slabs tilted and then cracked open in various places when the forklifts traveled over them. The floor was extremely slick and slippery from the water mixed with olive oil. Employees were slipping while walking and the forklifts were slipping when they picked up one of the full baskets. The forklift driving tire would spin furiously until it developed traction and the jerk the forklift forward or reverse. The safety ramifications were getting worse by the week. I talked to the plant General Contractor (G.C.), Tony, about the wrecked floor. He said he could get it done during the two week shutdown over the Christmas/New Year holiday period. Tony used a concrete contractor to pour the concrete and Tony said he would supply a hardener for the concrete mix that would greatly reduce the curing time. The hardener would allow the concrete to be used for production in just a couple of days. I went to the Plant Manager and Production Manager and explained what I wanted to do and how much the cost was going to be. They readily agreed to the plan. Without the repairs, it was only a matter of time before a serious accident took place in the area. Production was already adversely affected by the slippery and cracked floors. Also, I pointed out, the waste water draining through the cracks was percolating into the ground water. The Environmental Protection Agency definitely would not approve of the water passing through the cracks. I prepared a scope of work and solicited and received several bids on the work, but our G.C.'s bid was the lowest. He had intimate knowledge of the exact nature of the work required. I told Tony that I wanted his crew to work twelve hours a day until completion of the floor job. All his other assignments in the plant were put on hold till after the shutdown period was over. The floor had to be completed on time. The plant employed three hundred people who would be showing up for work after the holidays. The initial process plant had to start preparing the olives in storage seven days in advance of when they would be required. Once the olives were started on the seven day preparation time, they had to be canned the last day or be dumped into the waste bins. There was no turning back or storing them for a longer period. At $600 per ton for unprocessed olives, we didn't want to dump too many. The crew used two air compressors driving two large, 125# jackhammers. Having used a jackhammer before, I did not envy the workers on the jackhammers. There were enough people so the job could be rotated amongst the crewmembers. Everybody got a shot. As the concrete was broken up into smaller pieces, a small front end loader was used to collect the concrete pieces and remove them from the building to a dumpster outside the building. Tony had arranged for another contractor to haul the debris off the property to a landfill. The demolition and removal work was rapidly coming to an end. Tony kept me informed on the progress of the project. I had prepared a layout of the time frame of the various phases of the work with Tony. Because the men were working twelve hours a day, we were ahead of schedule. Being ahead of our schedule was great for my stress level. The reinforcement grid was cut out with ends sticking out of the edges of the concrete plates that were left in place. The ends would be exothermically welded to the new grid for the replacement concrete. Everthing was removed down to a level of 12 inches. The grade of concrete and hardener we would be using made that depth fine for the load range we needed. Tony calculated the slopes for drainage of the water to the floor drains. He directed his crew to install the reinforcement grid and then the forms needed for the concrete placement. I was impressed by the work crew. They were doing a terrific job. We were staying ahead of schedule with the work but not as far as I would have liked. I was worried that the concrete contractor might not be as motivated as Tony's crew. Tony, as the General Contractor for the project, had applied for and received a building permit from the County of Tulare prior to starting the work. The permit was posted on the job site as regulations required when the Building Inspector showed up for a job site inspection. Everything was up to grade and safe. The Inspector knew Tony from past jobs and expected no less than what he found. All was well. We could probably have gotten away with labeling the job as maintenance work and not applied for a permit, but I agreed with Tony that it is better to be safe than sorry. In the second week, the concrete contractor was finally told that the project was ready for the pour. The first truck was scheduled to be on the site at 6:00 AM. Everybody involved in the project would be on hand for the concrete pour and finishing. As the concrete was dumped into the forms, workers began ;pushing the concrete into every corner and smoothing the surface to the edges of the forms. We wanted the surface to have a rough finish for traction purposes. The work had to be completed rapidly. The hardener in the concrete did not give us much time. The concrete was hardening as it came out of the concrete truck. Everthing was moving at a fast but safe pace. I did not want to sacrifice safety for expediency. There was a small mixup as one of the floor drains almost got filled with concrete. As a section was finished, Tony scattered material on the surface that would penetrate the surface of the still drying extra-hard concrete and give added traction. All the concrete was in place by noon. Work on the surface was still being carried out by the crews under the guidance of Tony and the concrete contractor. Several hours later, all work on the concrete was completed. All we could do now was keep the surface wet while the concrete completed the initial curing phase. According to the manufacturer of the concrete and hardener, the concrete could be driven on only one day after being poured. We would have three full days before production began, but forklift travel would have to start after only one day. The equipment that had been removed would need to be put back into place by the forklifts. After one day of curing, a forklift was driven onto the surface. It did not sink into the floor. Yahoo. I was off the hook. The project was a success. The equipment was installed. Water was poured onto the floor to check traction for walking and forklift movement. It was more than satisfactory. It was great and looked more professional than the old, heavily cracked floor. Safety of employees working in the area had been given a big boost. It is hard, as company management, to tell people to be safe and then tell them to go work in an unsafe environment that could and should be corrected. After the startup of production, I checked with the area supervisor on the subject of the floor. The supervisor was excited about working on the new floor, as were the employees. Some of the equipment dealing with hand-loading the metal retort baskets had been removed and repaired as well. The floor and the repairs had made a very positive statement to the employees that the company and management were concerned with our employees safety and work environment. Feel free to copy this article in it's entirety as long as you include the credits below. Thank you for spreading the knowledge.
Author: Larry Bush |
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