BENEFICIATION
CoreSlab MD Jaco de Bruin.
and property-development markets. While the suspended-
slab market is CoreSlab’s “bread and butter”, the company also
manufactures lower volume systems for specialist markets.
They include precast-concrete reservoir walls and roofs;
grandstands for municipal sports and recreational centres;
and structural systems.
In Gauteng, there are many large manufacturers and
a number of start-up precast companies, and the market
has also felt the impacts of a decline in spending on
infrastructure at national, provincial, and municipal levels.
In Limpopo, CoreSlab has also felt the impacts of decline
in both the civil engineering and property-development
markets. However, the decision to specialise has helped the
company in these very challenging conditions. Meanwhile,
the bridge beam market is also fiercely competitive. There are
three suppliers in the northern area, namely the Free State,
Gauteng, Limpopo and the North West, as well as a number
of manufacturers in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
However, the barriers to entry are high due to the cost of
establishing the manufacturing plant and moulds. CoreSlab
has a full engineering workshop that makes its own moulds.
Challenges
The biggest benefit of precast slabs is that whatever can go
wrong goes wrong in the factory rather than on site, and
there what is likely to go wrong is typically with concrete
compaction. De Bruin describes another daily challenge of
precast as the quality of the rebar. “The rebar has to be of
the same quality as the concrete and so a consistent supplier
is essential. Your rebar needs to fit, and the challenge is that
much rebar is made by a manual process, which introduces
the element of human error. In addition to quality of supply,
we have a full-time fixing team on site. With precision
manufacturing such as precast, even a two-degree error
makes a difference in a mould. It’s never a question of
rejecting it, however, but fixing it — which affects efficiency.”
Weather is a challenge due to the factory being open to the
elements, though the time can be made up by either working
Saturdays or by steam-cure of the concrete whereby the
concrete cures faster.
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QUARRY SA | MAY/JUNE 2019_33