| Reducing the risks from manually-fed additives |
The value-added materials produced at the Aldermaston Readymix Plant require the plant supervisor to add materials during the mixing process by hand, often at height in a dusty environment. The pan mixer has to be opened to add the fibres, which used to require the plant to be locked off for each load.
To improve safety, the company added a slot to the aggregate intake chute of the pan mixer. This now allows bags of fibres to be hand added from a designated safe working platform without the supervisor needing to access the pan mixer or to halt the mixing process.
The design of the slot incorporates a mechanism to prevent dust being blown back into the working area through the addition of a simple sliding draw. In addition, hand added materials can now also be delivered directly to the correct height by a fork lift truck. |