Command Alkon ‘Replenishes’ concrete, bulk materials product suites

Sources: CP staff; Command Alkon Inc., Birmingham, Ala.

COMMANDoptimize, offering real-time fleet and plant management to improve ready mixed concrete dispatch operations’ efficiency and profitability, was center stage at the 2011 Command Alkon Customer Conference.

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NAHB Improving Markets Index expands to 30 metropolitan areas

Source: Rock Products staff

The number of improving housing markets continued to expand for a third consecutive month in November, rising from 23 to 30 on the latest National Association of Home Builders/First American Improving Markets Index. The list dropped two metropolitan areas and added nine new ones—Fort Collins, Colo.; Hinesville, Ga.; Davenport, Iowa; Monroe, La.; Lima, Ohio; Williamsport, Pa.; Corpus Christi and Tyler, Texas; and, Cheyenne, Wyo.

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CRSI recommends return to inch-pound markings

Source: Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute, Schaumburg, Ill.

At a meeting on November 9, the CRSI Board of Directors urged all producer members to revert to an inch-pound bar marking system for all sizes and grades of deformed reinforcing steel products. CRSI members produce more than 90 percent of domestic reinforcing steel.

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Penny’s Concrete effects Universal recycled motor oil switch

Source: Universal Lubricants, Wichita, Kan.

Shawnee Mission, Kan., ready mixed producer Penny’s Concrete has adopted American Petroleum Insitute-licensed and Society of Automotive Engineers-grade Eco Ultra recycled oils and coolants across its 150-truck fleet. Universal Lubricants bills itself as the only domestic producer of recycled motor oils, maintaining a closed-loop by collecting, re-refinining, blending, packaging and re-distributing its own truck lubricants. “The average 60-quart recycled motor oil change translates to a savings of 24 new barrels of oil,” notes CEO John Wesley.

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NCMA’s promotion-wise Check-Off program climbs Capitol Hill

Sources: CP staff; National Concrete Masonry Association, Herndon, Va.
 
By Don Marsh

Reps. John Shimkus (R-IL-19) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI-2) have introduced a bill enabling creation of a Concrete Masonry Board to oversee a generic promotion, research and information awareness program on behalf of U.S. block producers and importers. Operating with up to 25 members under Secretary of Commerce authority, the board could support the program—modeled after other industries’ “check-off” initiatives—by assessing producers or importers 1 to 5 cents/concrete masonry unit sold in the United States.

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