It will be an exhilarating moment for everyone involved in the construction of King Shaka International Airport when the wheels of the first commercial flight touch down at La Mercy. Few will be more delighted with their accomplishments – completed under demanding conditions and with the world watching – than the NPC Concrete team, which is supplying the ready-mixed concrete for the project.

More than midway through 2008, a great deal of quality concrete construction has been accomplished already.  NPC Concrete Managing Director Avi Bhoora says that while his company’s role at the terminal building is now reaching its peak, ready-mixed concrete is still being supplied to areas such as the multi-storey parking facility, cargo terminal, safety and maintenance facilities and control tower.   Soon the aprons, which will bear the weight of the New Generation Large Aircraft (NGLA), will go under construction.

One of the key players on the NPC Concrete team is Technologist Rolf Schutte who says, “Investing in wet batch concrete plants has certainly proven to be worthwhile.  The King Shaka International Airport project has demanded consistently high quality concrete delivered at high volumes. A large proportion of the ready-mix concrete has been pumped at around 600 m³ per pour, and this while simultaneously supplying large volumes of concrete to other sections of the project.  Successful high volume ready-mix pumping requires consistent concrete with standard deviations as low as 2 MPa.  In practice, our wet batching concrete  technology has very ably met these specifications.”

Something that adds to the project’s success has been the support by NPC Central Services’ on-site laboratory, which is manned by well trained and experienced staff. Continual feedback supplied to batchers during the day ensures that any changes in raw materials are managed and slumps remain within tolerance.   Additionally, concrete specimens are manufactured and distributed to three external laboratories for correlation testing every week to ensure compression testing is done correctly.

Although NPC Concrete has its own internal quality management system, its King Shaka plant has distinguished itself by achieving the Gold status in an external South African Readymix Association (SARMA) annual audit.  SARMA audit criteria involve strict Safety, Health, Environment, Road and Quality requirements.  Each of  NPC Concrete’s other five plants also scored highly, achieving Gold and Platinum Awards in the last annual SARMA audit.

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