“The hourly folks use it for doing their safety observations, putting in near misses, and for access to any kind of safety information,” Podrazik says. “It’s readily available and is online. We’ve got an internal safety computer system within our division that can be accessed, as well, to see what’s going on around the division and the industry. With technology being the way it is, the more information they have, the better off they’ll be, especially from a safety standpoint. We all know that if it has happened here, it has probably happened somewhere else. If we can learn from someone else’s near miss, we try to take advantage of that.”

Dealing with the slow economy

Arrowood currently employs 18 hourly and four salaried employees. “This year, we’ll probably do just short of 1 million tons, which is actually an improvement over where we’ve been recently,” Podrazik says. “During the peak in 2007, it was just below 2 million tons.”

Last year, the plant only ran for about five months out of the year. “We didn’t lay anyone off,” Smith says, “we farmed them out to different places. They had to drive a bit further, but we paid their mileage, and they, at least, got to work. The only market we have right now is a concrete stone and asphalt stone. There’s lots of resurfacing and concrete work going on, but no new road construction for our base stone.

“Business is better than last year, but not by much,” Smith adds. “The forecast for 2013 is looking better than this year, so business is changing to the positive side. The new transportation bill has not made an impact on this operation yet, but several big projects are coming up for bid.”

Equipment List

Pit equipment:

Kawasaki 135Z4 wheel loader

Caterpillar 988H wheel loader

Caterpillar 773B haul truck

Caterpillar 775E haul truck

Caterpillar 775F haul trucks (2)

Komatsu PC-300HD excavator with NPK G18 hammer

Atlas Copco L6H down-the-hole drill

Volvo G710 VPH motorgrader

Plant equipment:

Allis Chalmers 42 x65 gyratory crusher with

NPK GH10 B6500 pedestal breaker

Nordberg 7-foot standard crusher

Nordberg 7-foot shorthead crusher

Excel Raptor 400 shorthead cone crusher

Nordberg HP-300 fine cone crusher

Deister 6 x 16 three-deck wash screens (4)

Deister 6 x 16 three-deck dry screens (3)

Deister 6 x 16 two-deck dry screen

Deister 6 x 20 two-deck rinse screen

Deister 4 x 10 single-deck wet sand screen

GIW 6- x 8-inch LSA25 slurry pump

GIW 6- x 8-inch slurry pump

Eagle 54-inch twin sand screw

Plant support equipment:

JLG 80-foot manlift

John Deere 310SJ backhoe

Terex BT4792 boom truck crane

Caterpillar 980G wheel loader

Caterpillar 980H wheel loader