The job of specifying, installing, troubleshooting, repairing and upgrading ready mix or precast concrete batch plants provides a unique opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t when it comes to batch plant efficiency.

The five principles observed that always seem to lead to more efficient, and therefore more profitable, operations are;

 1) Preventive Maintenance

2)  Cleanliness

3)  Batch Control

4) Driver Staging

5) Safety

A simple guide lines of concrete batch plant efficiency is to maintain the ratio of

(a) the cost of inputs (employee hours, materials, energy, equipment, etc.) to

 (b) the revenue generated by sales.

 In other words; the lower your costs and the higher your revenue, the greater your efficiency. The most efficient batch plants produce more concrete with less wasted material, lower repair costs, less downtime, and fewer disruptions in employee productivity.

However it is easier said than done to achieve this efficiency.

The five areas mentioned above e.g. preventive maintenance, cleanliness, driver staging, and safety works as potent guiding force to keep the Concrete Batch Plant performance at peak.

1. Preventive Maintenance

At concrete plants where some kind of formalized inspection and maintenance schedule is in place, there tend to be fewer breakdowns. If the plant manager recognizes the importance of regular PM and communicates that to employees, chances are good that noisy bearings, worn belts, leaky air systems, clogged filter bags, etc., will be detected and repaired before breakdowns interrupt the concrete batching process. Also it would be good idea to stock critical plant parts such as solenoid valves, air cylinders, bearings, and various repair kits. If you aren’t sure what spares are on hand, it is advisable to sit with the maintenance person and put together a list.

Here is a quick check list to enhance the Preventive Maintenance exercise.

*Ideally keep concrete plant parts area neat and put labels on shelves for easy access in hour of need.

* Clean the Feeding and Output area clean after the batch is complete especially at the end of the day.

*Change filter bag at regular interval.

* Finally, consider PM software, either stand-alone or offered as part of your batching software. It provides a great way to track parts and equipment, and can help with spotting failure trends and recovering warranty reimbursements to which you are entitled.

2. Cleanliness

Keeping a concrete batch plant clean is a constant battle, but one well worth winning. Abrasive dust is especially hard on solenoid valves and cylinders. Add to that a little moisture, which mixes with the dust to form a crust that’s hard to remove, especially the mess that hinders maintenance and inspection activities. The obvious solution is a truck loading dust collector. Not only does it keep the plant cleaner, but truck drivers need to spend less time washing down the truck after loading.

3. Batch Control

Out of all the processes in a concrete batch plant, the one most critical to overall speed is control of the batching process as it affects the speed of the ribbon discharge into the truck. There are many different ways to sequence the materials—water, aggregate, cement, sand—but the crucial issue is to find the optimal discharge speed, somewhere below the point where the truck chokes up. In addition to the obvious benefits of avoiding stoppage of the batch process, proper ribboning of the materials into the mixer will shorten the driver’s time to assure that the batch is properly mixed and adjusted for slump.

4. Driver Staging

A frequent complaint of concrete batch plant operators is, locating the trucks and lining them to receive the output. Truck drivers fail to match the delivery schedule by being complacent. 

Just multiply loss of five minutes by 20 truck drivers, and you can easily lose over an hour a day this way. Driver education and rules enforcement are central to minimizing these losses.

5. Safety

Concrete batch plant designers must make cost-effective equipment selections, but when specifying safety features, keep the big picture in mind. Employees working around conveyors, aggregates and electrical panels are exposed to potential injury, which translates from exposure for the plant operator—to downtime as well as legal liability. Safety features that should be in every plant include emergency pull-cord shutoffs and safety disconnects on conveyor and turn head motors, and confined entry access manholes in aggregate and cement bin compartments. Where possible, stairs with handrails are preferred over ladders. Going one step further, certain kinds of automation can keep workers out of harm’s way. One example is a central grease manifold, which reduces employee exposure to dangerous areas by eliminating the need to apply grease at the bearing. Video observation systems provide a similar safety benefit by letting employees monitor choke points from the control room.