Maintaining organization and cleanliness in your precast concrete plant enhances safety and boosts morale.
Jon Maxwell is a stalwart in the precast concrete industry. Boasting more than 40 years of experience, Maxwell has worked from Massachusetts and Maine to Louisiana, Connecticut and beyond. With that kind of history, he knows what it takes to run a successful plant.
And while the recipe for a high-performing plant contains your usual ingredients – the right assortment of tools and materials, solid management, safe operations and quality products – there’s another critical piece of the puzzle that can be overlooked.
“A clean plant needs to be part of the equation,” said Maxwell, precast division manager at Southern Concrete Materials in Fletcher, N.C. “If you walk into your facility and the place is clean, organized and the product looks great, then you’ve got something.”
Defining clean
Producing precast is dirty work due to the materials used in mixing concrete and the manufacturing process, but this doesn’t mean that your plant should be untidy and disorganized. A “clean” precast plant is one where tools and equipment are returned to their original locations when not in use, according to Logan Brutcher, EHS coordinator at Norwalk Concrete Industries in Norwalk, Ohio.
“The easiest way that I think about it is that ‘clean’ for my work area means I don’t have to work around something that doesn’t belong,” Brutcher said. “Whether that’s lumber, rebar or mesh, if it’s piled up and isn’t necessary for my duties, then we have an issue. Essentially, clean means having my space free of items that would otherwise slow down my day.”
Maxwell noted that establishing a clean plant or workspace also includes picking up items dropped on the floor during production. Such items should be placed back in appropriate storage areas or disposed of, depending on the situation. When Maxwell served as the plant manager at Arrow Concrete Products in Granby, Conn., this was an area of focus.
“Raw material waste is such a big thing,” Maxwell said. “You have ties, plastic chairs and everything else that goes into a product. A worker might drop three of those on the ground and just leave them there, but that’s a huge mistake. That’s money wasted.”
To illustrate the impact on his fellow team members, Maxwell developed a cost board. On the board, he wire-tied every raw material used at Arrow and included a price indicating the cost of each. He then walked the plant over the course of one day, filling up buckets with the items that had fallen on the ground.
Once the materials were collected, Maxwell called a meeting with his team. He showed everything to his team members and, after sorting through the dropped materials, $67 worth of wire, wire ties, plastic and other various items were found.
Maxwell’s effort showcases that, while it may be easy to overlook housekeeping in a precast plant, failing to maintain organization and cleanliness can be costly and inefficient, holding back what might otherwise be a successful operation.
Establishing the culture
One of the best ways to establish a culture of cleanliness and organization at your precast plant is to discuss the importance of these efforts with team members from the beginning. At NCI, Brutcher and his safety team cover housekeeping within the first hour of orientation, setting the standards for expectation and establishing a solid foundation for good work habits.
From there, housekeeping is continuously stressed as a part of the company’s monthly safety audits. The team asks pointed safety questions like “Are guards and handles on tools?” but also cleanliness-focused prompts such as “Are concrete tools clean?” and “Do you have piles of debris cluttering up your workspace?”
As Brutcher explained, one of the primary goals with housekeeping is to help keep workers safe while maintaining efficiency.
“The job can be hard enough as it is,” Brutcher said. “Keeping as many things under control as possible is only going to help you.”
Ensuring that spaces are well-organized can be accomplished with consistency by instructing team members to clean as they go. While messes are inevitable, they typically become problematic only when left to grow over time. Taking a few minutes to handle dropped materials, debris and other related issues throughout the day will keep spaces clean while simultaneously instilling a strong “culture of clean” across the organization. And, with this habit established, workers will come into the plant and head home with a clean workspace, setting them up for success at the start of each day.
When Maxwell worked at Atlas Concrete Products in New Britain, Conn., he led a a small team of five workers. The group poured about 25 to 50 yards of concrete per day. To generate a sense of ownership related to housekeeping, Maxwell divided the plant floor into four quadrants. He then assigned a quadrant to each employee. Each team member was responsible for keeping their section of the plant clean for four weeks. Positions then rotated, allowing each employee to be responsible for the entire plant over time.
“Workers do clean up after themselves as they go,” Maxwell said. “But this method flows well and ends up bringing the team together. The plant is spotless at the end of the day.”
Maxwell kept the energy flowing by rewarding his team for a job well done. If the plant continued to look great at the conclusion of a four-week period, he would buy breakfast or lunch for his employees, further incentivizing them to maintain their positive habits.
Reaping the benefits
Keeping your plant clean provides a wide array of benefits. As illustrated via Maxwell’s raw materials exercise, minimizing waste can help your plant save on costs. At Arrow, just one day’s worth of items dropped on the floor resulted in $67 lost. If this occurred from Monday to Friday over the course of an entire year, the amount would balloon to more than $17,000. Securing this money is as simple as developing and managing a housekeeping program that establishes a strong cleaning culture with team members who recognize the importance of staying organized.
Clean plants also tend to perform at a higher level when attracting and retaining talent. Maxwell noted that Atlas’s facility presented well with up-and-coming precasters who showed interest in working at the plant.
“If you bring someone around and the facility’s a little cleaner, it makes a huge difference,” Maxwell said. “Having an organized plant offers you a fighting chance at bringing in employees who are both excited about the work and who will want to stick around for the long-term.”
Maintaining cleanliness can also contribute positively to your company’s brand. When hosting fellow precasters, members of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry or local DOT professionals, a tidy plant will send important messages about the nature of your business, helping formulate positive opinions. A clean and organized facility suggests that you likely place the same level of care into the design and manufacturing of your precast products as you do your housekeeping efforts.
Additionally, Brutcher noted that clean spaces are easier to work in, allowing his team members to operate with increased safety and performance. They also offer an opportunity to increase morale throughout the plant. When employees look around and see work areas that they are proud of, they are more motivated to maintain cleanliness while simultaneously remaining committed to producing quality precast.
Maxwell agreed.
“If workspaces are organized, you’re not tripping and falling,” Maxwell said. “But it’s also a huge morale booster. The guys like coming into the plant – we get there clean and go home dirty, and the next day we start all over again.”
At the center of it all
Multiple factors can affect the performance of your precast business. Owners and managers must consider where to source raw materials, the types of products to manufacture, how to attract and retain talent and so much more.
But no matter what decisions are made on these fronts, maintaining a “culture of clean” and a well-organized plant should be at the center of it all. Doing so will set your plant up for success by enhancing efficiency, minimizing waste, increasing safety and boosting morale, all while offering a facility that both internal teams and external visitors will be proud to visit and support.