Housing in Southern Africa February 2015

Industry Buzz, Events & Products

Lafarge’s

T he global awards programme was designed to promote and transfer best practices and processes within the group. Lafarge South Africawon in the global Capital Allocation category – for its More- grove Quarry, executed under team leader Peter Willemse. The project was chosen as one of the six interna- tional winners out of 170 top project submissions from 35 countries. Ken MacLean, Country CEO of Lafarge South Africa says, “Winning this global award shows that commit- ment to the success of our company, through hard work and creative ini- tiatives, is recognised at the highest level. It means that we have the ability to compete against any other country in the world!” Moregrove Quarry’s award-win- ning project addressed the problem of the high fines content of its stone, which was limiting sales of asphalt sand. After an investigation, it was found that the quarry’s air separator had the ability to remove much of the fine sand particles. The Asphalt sand’s quality was improved and a profitable outlet for the recovered fines in the manufacture of bricks, blocks and other precast concrete products was determined. The project’s benefits include: • Successful reduction in fines -0.075mm from 16% to 10%. • The fines are separated and can be blended with another product (-4.75mm) to produce a blend which is in high demand from a brick and block precast producer. • The improvement in fines quality was cost effective. • Low maintenance solution. This proactive thinking resulted in R8 million revenue per year and an tribute to the company’s six local winning teams as well as its global winning team in recognition of their performance during the 2014 annual Global Lafarge Awards. Lafarge South Africa, the local presence of the international Lafarge Group, recently paid

Lafarge South Africa’s award winning team

increase in asphalt sand sales. The judges of the award submis- sions praised the quality of this year’s entries, saying theywere high impact, results driven programmes. The six winners of the final global Lafarge Awards were: • Category: Capital Allocation – Winning Country: South Africa; Initiative: Innovative fines man- agement gives better returns and has opened up a new business opportunity

• Category: Health & Safety – Win- ning Country: Morocco; Initia- tive: Aimed to promote strong, committed H&S leadership at all levels. Conducted programmes that promoted responsibility and accountability among managers in the field. Safety knowledge and risk analysis skills were enhanced. • Category: Cash flows and EBITDA – Winning Country: France; Ini- tiative: Facing a declining and increasingly competitive market, Lafarge France did a total review

February 2015