Success in a typical ready mixed concrete operation can turn on the performance of a small team with outsized influence on human capital and physical asset utilization, as well as customer loyalty and profitability. In Making It Happen – Achieving Excellence in RMC Transportation & Customer Service, Jack Delperdang seeks to fill a void in industry references for building an…
Read MoreAuthor: Don Marsh
Topping the 2023 radar
Major industry developments last year did not match the eventful 2021, when a dealmaking flourish put leading admixture, plant equipment and ready mixed or manufactured concrete brands or market stakes on track to change hands. But 2022 served up its share of surprises. A review of the year’s most impactful content from these pages and our companion Concrete Currents weekly…
Read MoreCarbon (fiber) embodiment
The CPC entry was among 133 organizers booked in the 2022 bauma Innovation Award Construction, Climate Protection, Digitalization, Mechanical Engineering and Research categories. The competition is a joint project of VDMA Construction – Equipment and Plant Engineering and bauma host Messe München, plus the Federation of the German Construction Industry, German Construction Confederation and German Building Materials Association. Companies and…
Read MoreCalPortland asks the Supreme Court to draw a line on union recklessness
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this term involving one of the West Coast’s top cement, aggregate and ready mixed concrete players (note Government Affairs, page 11). CalPortland Co. counsel will demonstrate why justices should reverse a Washington State Supreme Court decision shielding International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 174 from liability in a 2017 Seattle plant stunt…
Read MoreA ‘Concrete’ Mystery
Researchers have enlisted the resources of one of the world’s leading X-ray facilities at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Ill. to help discover what lies inside German-born artist Wolf Vostell’s “Concrete Book #83.” The results of the X-ray scans, which will be published in an unnamed journal, hope to uncover a short book by…
Read MoreSilicate Summons
Terra CO2 localizes supplementary cementitious material production, harnessing the binding potential of secondary, virgin feedstocks As the drum beat for low carbon concrete binders grows louder in public and private construction markets, supplementary cementitious material developer Terra CO2 Technology Holdings Inc. has a unique value proposition hinging on two critical achievements—one at the bank, the other in the field. Under…
Read MoreNational Mixer Driver Championship: A much-warranted workforce salute
The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association Workforce Development Committee did not sugarcoat the results of its 2021 Mixer Driver Recruitment and Retention Survey. As we noted in a report last month, survey data shows that 28 of every 100 drivers hired in 2021 quit during the year. That placed ready mixed producers 3 points above the national resignation rate the…
Read MoreBack to School
Students at Ransom Everglades School (Coconut Grove, Fla.) and Longwood University (Farmville, Va.) returned to award-winning precast/prestressed concrete buildings this school year: a STEM center and residence halls, respectively. Both projects were recognized in the 2022 Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute Design Awards program. PCI-certified precast concrete producer and specialty engineer Gate Precast of Kissimmee, Fla., was behind the lightweight but formidable…
Read MoreSuperior Spans
Tindall Building Systems engineers hollow core and cast-in-place concrete floor slab alternative BY DON MARSH After shedding a legacy organization structure drawn around precast concrete solutions for building and nonbuilding markets, Tindall entered 2022 with two namesake business groups, both maintaining Spartanburg, S.C. headquarters. The change to Tindall Infrastructure and Tindall Building Systems coincided with major plant capacity and production…
Read MoreCarbon policies ignite fires under federal agency seats
A hastily conducted first quarter survey spawning the General Services Administration’s Low Embodied Carbon Concrete Standards, noted here in May, set the table for comparably quick, parallel action by the Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency (note Federal Buy Clean Initiative, page 13), plus the Department of Energy (DOE). The latter’s new “Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap” identifies pathways—Energy Efficiency; Industrial…
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