1. business and industrial

CEMEX’s bagging plant gets the
DISAB treatment
CEMEX UK, one of the UK’s leading building materials solutions providers, has been
deploying DISAB SkipVacs™ to keep its new state-of-the-art, £3.5 million cement
bagging plant clean and dust-free. Based at its Rugby plant site in Warwickshire, the
new plant now provides CEMEX customers with cement in the new vacuum-sealed,
plastic packaging.
Why was a SkipVac™ needed?
Unlike the old bagging process, the sophisticated plastic vac-packing process is housed
within a building, and as the man responsible for CEMEX’s bagging plant, Carlos Contreras
recognized, this would need a very different approach to keeping the plant and building
clean and dust-free.
Carlos explains: “Traditionally we’d have cleaned up manually so while the new bagging
plant was being built, we researched online and found DISAB UK (www.disab.com) had the
kind of cleaning solution we were looking for, one that can deal with both dust and larger
spillages. It was also forklift portable, powerful and easy to use, and worked as a fully
enclosed system.”
How’s the SkipVac™ performing?
Carlos is clearly delighted with the net results, as he comments:
“The SkipVac™ is a really good and highly effective industrial cleaning solution. Starting
with one, we have just introduced a second at the cement mills area and they’re saving our
operatives a lot of time compared with manual cleaning techniques employed. Furthermore,
we’ve noticed that certain parts of the bagging plant like the palletiser need more attention
when it comes to cleaning and removing dust. Using SkipVacs™ makes these tasks much
more easily accomplished.”
“The main advantage of the DISAB SkipVac™ is the time factor. For our operatives, using
the SkipVac™ is a lot less hassle and a lot more efficient. I’d reckon that what would have
been a day’s work done by two men is now able to be completed by one in 3-4 hours. That
means we can clean much more plant in one day.”
Couple of tonnes of cement dust a week cleaned up and recycled
Carlos continues:
“The cleaning is usually done on Sundays, and we will fill the SkipVacs’ hoppers three to
four times with the dust generated by a week’s production and bagging. This equates to
about two tonnes which goes straight back into the production process, so there’s no waste
at all.”
Reaching the places other things can’t reach
Carlos has seen how the SkipVac’s™ flexibility and reach is making cleaning much easier:
“The SkipVac’s™ vacuum suction power is especially effective at cleaning the parts that are
awkward to reach or get at, or which are intricate and complex. A powerful vacuum makes
dust removal from these difficult-to-clean parts easy, whereas traditional methods would be
virtually ineffective.
“This has a number of benefits: it keeps our working environment clean and dust-free, and the
plant itself can be maintained in a good and dust-free condition. The result is a much more
efficient and longer engineering life for the plant.”
DISAB UK’s support and service is top notch
Having contacted DISAB UK initially following his online research, Carlos was impressed by
the expertise and advice he then received, initially from their sales engineer, as to which
DISAB machine would provide the best cleaning solution for CEMEX’s specific requirements,
and then at the speed of response whenever a call was placed to DISAB UK itself.
As Carlos explained it: “We’ve enjoyed brilliant support from the team at DISAB UK.”
CEMEX and maintaining top standards of housekeeping
Carlos explains the company’s position on insisting on the
highest standards of operation:
“For CEMEX,” he said, “good housekeeping is one of our
top priorities. In addition to our commitment to health and
safety, the environment and sustainability, it’s very
important that every place of work is as safe, clean and well
maintained.”
“This greatly helps the mindset of our operatives, and
shows outside audiences that CEMEX is actually
demonstrating what we believe in and talk about. And it’s
obviously impressing customers who can see a very clean
and high tech set-up which all helps to enhance the
perceptions of CEMEX as a great company to deal with.”
“The SkipVac™ keeps our
working environment
clean and dust-free.”