AfriSam’s Coedmore Quarry near Durban has survived tough market conditions and intense competition by adhering to strict SHEQ (safety, health, environment and quality) principles. This strong credo has been instituted and instilled in all employees through a successive line of highly participative plant managers. The result is an operation that consistently achieves showcase status for its unblemished safety record and simultaneously manages to maintain high levels of quality product output.

Perhaps the biggest accolade in terms of health and safety is Coedmore Quarry’s performance on Aspasa’s Health and Safety and Environmental Audits. For the past five years Coedmore has received showplace status, an achievement that sets it apart as a quarrying operation and underlines AfriSam’s stated values of People, Planet and Performance.

“In its most basic form, this is a commitment to our stakeholders and ourselves not to accept mediocrity and to recognise that injury is not something that ‘happens to someone’ but rather it impacts a colleague or a friend who plays a valuable role in the company,” says Jurgens du Toit, AfriSam’s regional manager – construction materials South KZN and previous Coedmore Quarry works manager.

Du Toit points out that the Aspasa audits are critical to Coedmore’s safety programme. “The audits not only provide us with a checklist and yardstick with which we can measure our performance, but they focus on trends within the industry. Through the audit protocol and the knowledge sharing that transpires from it, we are able to determine any potential shortfalls and to rectify them immediately.”

The last Lost Time Injury at Coedmore Quarry was recorded on 1 September 2008. Du Toit says that AfriSam places emphasis on high levels of safety compliance and has implemented a number of programmes such as Competency Based Safety (CBS) to achieve organisation wide Occupational Health and Safety awareness.

In keeping with continuous improvement and as a typical example of embracing change, in 2013 Coedmore Quarry completely rewrote its safety procedures with regards to working on the crest of drilling/blasting area. Specialised input was received from Southern Rock (indoor and outdoor rock climbing specialist), suppliers of ropes and harnesses used by AfriSam at the quarry and drilling contractors Eire Contractors.

The result of this collaborative effort between Coedmore, aforementioned vendors and the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) is that a practical, user friendly system has been rolled out to all the AfriSam KZN operations. When drilling or blasting takes place, blue poles (supplied by Glassfibre Products) are sunk into the ground three metres away from the crest and a red (top) and blue (bottom) static climbing rope is strung between the poles to indicate the start of the no-go area. The drilling operators are then required to attach the harness they are wearing to a double rope system whenever they work closer than the poles to the crest.

Today, the Coedmore Quarry pit, with its highest face 110 metres (46 metres below sea level), is surrounded by a vast array of strategically planted and nurtured indigenous vegetation. This forms part of the Environmental Development Programme instituted at the quarry in 2002.

Coedmore Quarry has managed to go above and beyond the levels of compliance required by the DMR and has, at the same time, ensured a harmonious relationship with local residents.

“We have instituted a number of measures that minimise the impact of our operations on local residents. These include the installation of sound, air quality and dust meters to monitor levels at strategic points throughout our site. We undertake systematic cleaning of the Londonspruit River which enters and exits our property, and we are active members of the Industrial Liaison Forum which further improves our relationship with our neighbours through information sharing,” Sagie Jaganaikulu, current works manager at Coedmore Quarry, says.

The systematic and strategically planned rehabilitation programme involves the monumental task of removing alien invader plant species and replanting with thousands of indigenous trees, shrubs and plant, in conjunction with local company Natal Landscapes. To date 11 896 trees, shrubs and ground covers have been planted.

The quarry produces a wide variety of aggregates including 53 mm ballast, 53 mm, 37 mm, 26.5 mm, 19 mm, 13.2 mm, 9.5 mm and 6.7 mm concrete stone, scour (armour rock) and selected first crush, G1, G2, G4, G5 and G7. In addition, it also produces 19 mm, 13.2 mm and 9.5 mm roadstone on request. Annual outputs of one million tons are not uncommon and at any one time, the operation maintains a stockholding of 8 000 tons of product on the intermediate stock pile.

AfriSam has invested heavily in its laboratory, where all products are regularly tested to ensure quality conformance within specific parameters. “Normally one sample in every 500 tons of product is tested, with additional testing taking place whenever plant changes or specialised products such as roadstone are required. In some cases, three to four samples are tested per day to ensure that specifications are met,” Jaganaikulu says.

The quarry was extremely busy during 2013, supplying 120 000 tons of scour to the project for widening the Durban harbour as well as ongoing G5 and G7 base course material to the Umgeni Road Interchange project.

According to Du Toit, the trend is a move away from traditional base course to a stabilised base course, which has resulted in Coedmore Quarry changing its production processes to accommodate this change. “While this has led to a drop in average selling prices due to product mix, it has also offered us the opportunity to open up the quarry for future development. Having a plant that can be adapted to meet an increasing trend in the Durban market to produce non-standard products has also benefitted Coedmore Quarry as well. These non-standard products are set to continue in line with growth in the harbour and associated projects.”

He explains that the second diversion of the Londonspruit River has allowed the operation to remove almost one million tons of overburden, and has resulted in the ability to substantially expand the quarry. In addition, an underpass is being blasted under Coedmore’s main conveyor from the in-pit crusher to the intermediate stock pile. This will create a shorter route for the articulated dump trucks and will result in reduced costs in terms of cycle time, diesel usage and deferred capital expenditure.

The AfriSam credo ‘Building our future together’ is very evident in this highly productive quarry, which is characterised by the perfect balance it maintains between safety, environmental stewardship, customer and supplier relations, and quality output.

COEDMORE QUARRY PIC 01 : Cladded screen towers which contain noise and dust.

COEDMORE QUARRY PIC 02 : Drilling operations taking place using the new approved safety barrier system.

COEDMORE QUARRY PIC 03 : Implementation of "Safety Berms" at AfriSam's Coedmore quarry.