ISSUE 77 Friday 25th December 2015

Christmas Special

In this weeks edition

Taking things to a whole new platform in CPO

Compressed Air is not free, Utilities and LMO saving us electricity

10k Banked in Recycling Campaign for LMO

Hooking in on more Savings in the Rod Shop

Steve is Always Instantly Accessible, Contractors are awesome

How Safe is This, CPOs new remote pendants proved to be the

goods

Tomago is now on Facebook!

You will now be able to see
WOTW here.
Go to our page Tomago Aluminium Pty Ltd and Like us or
follow the link below:

Tips for the Holidays

Take some time out for yourself, do something you enjoy.

Look after yourself physically by eating well and finding time for some
exercise.

Get a good nights sleep.

Limit your intake of alcohol excessive alcohol consumption effects your sleep, mood and health.

Take time to talk to a trusted friend or family member about things that may be troubling you.

Drink plenty of water

Over Christmas there tends to be a lot more people on the roads

Remember to Stop, Revive and Survive every 2 hours if you are taking long trips
Things to Remember:

DONT use mobile phones while driving, inlvuding texting or talking

Do not drink and drive Police will be targeting drink drivers and those under the influence of drugs

Avoid driving under stress and trying to get places in a short time span

Avoid driving when you are tired

Take care of yourself, and look out for family and friends over the Christmas period

Taking things to a whole new Platform in CPO

If possible when a problem was identified with a cast less
than 4m in length crews would continue casting until the cast
was greater than 4m in length to enable them to place the
billets on the conveyor.
Networking provided information from Boyne Island Smelter where they had the same problem and had developed a
platform for handling short product. This generated a discussion with Ken Stock from Worley on developing a similar
concept that would work in our environment and a small
The VAP billet teams were exposed to manual handling risks, project was initiated to build the platform.
in particular crushing and pinch points when ever there was This has resulted in delivery of a platform that can be stored
a cast aborted that was less than 4m in length. This is the
on the redundant VDC2 casting pit. It can be moved into lominimum length required to allow the billets to be safely po- cation near VDC1 when required using a crane to minimise
sitioned and handled on the billet conveyor.
movements in the hot metal aisle and congestion. It has an
A cast can abort at any stage during the casting process, with adjustable beam enabling it to handle the variation in abortproduct less than .5m able to manually removed and placed ed cast lengths and FLT access to pick up and remove the
in scrap bins. Product between .5m and 4m in length gener- product.
ated the greatest safety risks during stripping the product
Great work to everyone involved to get this set
from the pit, placing the product on dunnage and being able
up.
to pick it up easily with a fork lift.

CPO VAP (Value Added Product) Short Product

Removal Platform

Manual handling risk reduced

Pit turn around time reduced

Len Davis, Brad Mace and Mark Stubbs inspecting the platform

Platform being moved into position

Compressed Air is Not Free

Compressed Air is critical to plant operation and stability. Over the past 20+ years TAC has been placing more
and more strain on the compressed air system. This has
meant that the nine Atlas Copco plant air compressors
that are located in three compressor houses all run continually during the summer months leaving TAC with no
redundancy. To overcome this TAC has traditionally
hired portable compressors at a cost of over $2k each
day for the summer months to cover for any failures
that may occur.
During the last 12 months Utilities have been working
with the Potlines on understanding and finding better
ways of controlling air usage. They have included, daily
monitoring of Ncoupi settings (this is the number of
crustbreaker breaks compared to feeding), reducing air
leaks, reducing pressure setting and changing the control logic for the compressors.

For the first time in TACs history we currently have

nearly two compressors on standby during 40 degree
days. All up, it is expected that this will save over
$300k in electricity costs alone.
This is a great result and demonstrates what can be
achieved when all parties come together to find better
ways of doing things. This is a fantastic effort, well
done!

$10k Banked in Recycling Campaign

The Day work Operations team was
In just 2 months these initiatives have
challenged to find improved solutions to delivered a cost saving of $11,000! Imthe long-held method of replacing items agine what we can save in a full year!
LMO use a range of consumables in dai- upon failure. The team identified a
ly pot monitoring and measuring tasks. number of consumables that can either
These items range from specialised
be refurbished on-site or replace certain
measuring equipment (thermocouples) components at a fraction of the cost.
to general items such as shovels, metal
Here are some examples of what has
prodders and levers. When purchased
been achieved in the past 2 months:
new, these can add up to a sizeable cost
over the course of the year.
Pacman Hoses: New hose cost $154.
With some basic tools such as hose
lengths and clamps now being purchased and assembled in-house, hoses
are recycled at a cost of $34 each. Cost
Savings = $4,110

Hoses, Shovels and Prodders,

savings can be made anywhere!

A big thank you to the LMO Day

Shovels: Replaced snapped handles
Work Operations Team and the
with spares found on site instead of
Central Workshop for your continbuying new ones. Cost Savings = $250
ued efforts on initiatives to reduce
Prodders: Trial was performed where
waste and manage costs. Every bit
60 were repaired in-house at an average counts. Well done!
cost of $10 each, compared to purchasing new at $120 each. Cost Savings =
$6,600

Hooking in on more savings in the Rod Shop

Pig hooks are used to lift pig iron for re-melting in the Furnace. Realising an opportunity to review the existing design of a pig hook, a simpler design was proposed with the same functionality. There was no additional risk to our people or
processes and it presented with a significant reduction in costs.
The old design cost $52 per hook, where the new design is $34 per hook. This
created a saving of 35% through less material and less labour. A prototype was
made and tested, involving 2 crews, with positive feedback. 100 new hooks were
procured and are ready for use. Great initiative, well done Rod Shop.

Steve is always instantly accessible

On a weekly basis in the Bake Ovens, an employee from one of the teams is nominated
for recognition. For the first time the other week the nomination came for Steve

Kulevski from Instant Access. Steve has helped out frequently with big break
downs in the Bake Ovens and Paste Plants. He is at times contacted at 10pm at night
and on site ready to go at 3am. This type of effort is hugely appreciated
and we thank Steve for his consistent commitment here on site. Thank
you from the Carbon Team.

How Safe is this!

Controlling The Risk Remotely Really Works!
The new CHFTA remote control that we published in a recent edition of WOTW
was certainly put to the test over the weekend when a PLC failure in the TAC Station caused a full ladle to become stuck for over 5 hours. During this time, the metal inside the ladle was becoming colder and colder.
And so the new remote was utilised to its full potential in keeping our people safe
during the high risk task of pouring a very cold ladle into a furnace.more like trying to pour 10 tonnes of unpredictable honey than smooth liquid aluminium.
The team used their Take 5 book to ensure they had covered all of the potential
risks & the operators were able to pour the ladle safely using the remote, this
meant they were
not tied to the
pendent allowing them to be at a safe distance.
With one comment from the guys capturing it all
How safe is this!
Well done to Shift 2 for managing this operation
safely and also to the Maintenance and Production
teams who worked together to actually install and
commission the CHFTA remote within just 1 week
(luckily it was last week).
It just goes to show what is possible when both
teams work together.