DISAB SkipVac improves housekeeping techniques for Anderton Concrete
To bring their housekeeping techniques and standards up to date, Anderton Concrete, manufacturers of pre-cast concrete products switched from the usual manual way of doing things with brushes and brooms to powered vacuum suction using the DISAB SkipVac compact and portable industrial vacuum unit.
Anderton Concrete supply a vast range of sustainable pre-cast products and their manufacturing process invariably means that there is a lot of dust generated within the plant areas. Over the last five years, factory manager Mike Aspinall has seen how effectively the DISAB SkipVac performs compared to their old ways of dealing with the housekeeping and waste and dust removal.
Hearing about the SkipVac from a colleague, Mike decided to get one for an initial trial period of a month. Impressed by its impact on the quantities of dust that had to be cleaned up everyday, and by the reduction in the time taken by fewer operatives on the shopfloor to do the housekeeping, Mike went ahead with a long-term hire contract.
Commenting on how his team uses the SkipVac on a daily basis, Mr Aspinall said: ‘We have specified daily housekeeping routines with regard to dust, aimed at being the best in class. Housekeeping to the highest standards is what we aim to achieve everyday.
‘The SkipVac helps us to do precisely that, whereas the brooms and shovels and barrows probably helped make more dust of an airborne kind than we were actually removing from the numerous surfaces. The volumes of dust being handled and removed everyday with the SkipVac are impressive, and amount to approximately a skip-load every couple of days.’
Dust and concrete waste is sucked up by the SkipVac’s fully enclosed (from the nozzle to its internal skip or hopper) cleaning system, and is then safely removed off-site. This is usually done by lifting the SkipVac’s 30kW motor and top away from the hopper using a forklift, and then taking the skip with the forklift to a storage area for onward recycling of the waste material.
That portability also gives the SkipVac and its 60ft of flexible suction hose immense flexibility, as it can be taken to wherever it is needed on site to reach every nook and cranny where dust gathers.
Given that cleaning and housekeeping aren’t usually the most popular tasks around manufacturing sites, Mr Aspinall has also observed the impact of the DISAB SkipVac on his team of operatives: ‘They not only like using it and find it easy to do the cleaning up, I’d go as far as saying that the lads would not be without it. The SkipVac is not only quicker but safer and far more effective than a brush, broom and barrow.’
