Aggregates Manager Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/878969
AGGREGATES MANAGER / September 2017 11 Before any work begins at Four Corners Materials' Ani- mas Glacier Facility in Durango, Colo., a 15-minute safety meeting is held each morning. However, if there's a serious incident reported or if something out of the ordinary is planned for that day, extra time is spent in discussion. If anything is found out of place or wrong during the morning walk around, the plant won't start up until everything is in place and ready to go. "Some think if you follow the rules, you won't get any- thing done," Mylroie says. "There's proof here that you can follow all the rules and still get it done. Once you see it in action, it's a no brainer. Don't do anything risky." If the crew has a problem with anything — the job, a proj- ect, or a task — they do a detailed analysis. The crew gets together, writes down the way it's being done, and then writes down better ideas of how it could be done to make it safer and compare them. "It's the crews that get together and do those," Mylroie notes. "We've had a lot of good ideas come from this, too." One such idea was a better way to change a cone crusher liner. When the bonnet on the cone is removed, it leaves an open hole shaped like a cone where a worker must balance to do any type of work inside. Mylroie and two welders built a platform that sits down inside the open hole that allows them to walk around or sit down to perform maintenance or repairs. Their creativity in solving the problem got them hon- orable mention for safety innovation from Oldcastle in 2017. "Honestly, you need that to come from those guys," Kyle says. "They're the ones that do the job every day. They're the ones who need to come up with a safer way to do it, and we need to support them and get it done. I like it when someone comes to me and says 'look at these pictures of what we did.' It's already done before I know it. They feel empowered to just get it done and then show me, and that's fine." There are several safety items that are stressed at the operation. These come from Fundamentals of Fatality Elimination (FFE), which — if not done properly — are things known to cause industry fatalities. "We focus on these and have an audit on at least one of the FFEs every month at all of our locations," Mylroie explains. "The audits get the whole crew involved in dis- cussions on what our procedures are and if there are other things that need to happen or change to do tasks the safest way possible. Safety is pushed as #1 and is a core value across all operations. Safety trumps production. We make safety our family business, always." Safety is the top priority at Four Corners Materials