empire concrete

EMPIRE CONCRETE

CA: Who are you and what kind of job do you do in this company?

FS: Madame Florence, Assistant general manager: I see to sale and marketing of the products. The customer is satisfied at the project, the quality. So that’s the customer come again, make sure that the customer is satisfied and returns and when the customer isn’t happy, my role is to come again him. Franco Floriano, marketing relation

CA: What about your company?

FS: There are many productions is ready mix in concrete. We have the capacity to deliver almost istant to hard plants. The conditions is almost the top among of the competitors. Recently we want a world that is putting as the best marketing company and production of ready mix concrete in Ghana. I see that we are the N°1 ready mix in concrete in Ghana for now.

CA: How do the marketplace changed on the time? Whereas the marketplace in which you find there are many large foreign companies, how you established in this market?

FS: We are into costruction ,we see to make route, site defends, bridge. We buy concrete and we want to make by our self. The good news is that: Micheletti and De Simone construct themselves so the main effort also to supply themselves first and then we have also a main effort to supply to the public and then to ourself second. Micheletti and De Simone are producing it but supply themselves first and then support go outside. We have the republic in mind and then support come to us so it is the opposite way.

CA: With which company do you collaborate?

FS: We collaborate to ourself. We collaborate with who ask us. Also we collaborate with who have raw materials chipping and sand, a part from the cement that we pay from Ghacem, Dangote. So from Ghacem and Dangote we buy, it is not a collaboration.

CA: What do you produce?

FS: We produce ready Mix Concrete and blocks.

CA: Which types of framework do you use for this kind of block?

FS: It’s a mold into machine.

CA: Do you use additive or dyes? which one?

FS: Yes, but you must to talk with technical people.

CA: Do you use recycling conrete in ghana or in the company? Have you ever thought this?

FS: No, we have though about it, but we don’t use it.

CA: Have you minimal requirements expedite for the quality of concrete?

FS: It depend on the type of work you are doing for istance if you are doing a bridge you know that you have to use C40 to do it, if you do a blending you know that you have to use C30. Also the request the minimum strength is it about C15, the type of the strength you need.

CA: In your opinion, why in ghana there is predilection for concrete in comparison to other materials?

FS: Sometime is the time. we want a project done in a few days and when you want to do it manual, you do not take less twice, the days to use concrete are much less, in two days it is over. The timeline of the project is convenient. Is too cheaper. If you use ready mix the project show the quality, the people who want the quality, want to show this quality, so they use concrete. The convenience, the quality, the delivery, the quality of life.

CA: Do you like a house with more sustainable materials?

FS: The security is very taint. In Ghana if you want free to walk in the evening or in the night it is impossible, instead in your country when you are walking you can do it without problem if you live in a house in straw, you are safe. But in Ghana is off freedom. We use the block of concrete for the security. If I use this container, some people can break it.

CA: How material you use before the concrete?

FS: Blocks.

CA: Crossing the bunching plan...

AS: First everything start from the lab, all material we recived came first to the lab: the chipping, the sand, the water. The chemical of them, we tasted all. it came past through on our machine to test and when the quality is good we start to use it. This one we use to check the water absorption of chipping and another material. This one is the crashing machine test, this one also to taste the concrete. After, we can start the concrete. There are more different grade of concrete, they start from C15 to C45 – C50 the smallest strengths is C15, it used for blending , C20 for slap, C35 for column, so is depend on what the request from the site and what they are casting. After, when we agree all the materials we go outside the lab to do a mix. In original we put the concrete inside a cube framework to test it.

All the material we are using: one, two, three, four different material, they come through to the our tank and go to the mixer and are mixed. The aggregates come go on the top of a machine from tank, the cement go inside from another machine and are mixed in mixer truck. The quantity is depend on the request . it can change.

In the operator room, everything is full automatic. It take order, after we given order, the operator control and claim the request, enter information and it start to load the order (for istance 10 cubic meters, 7 cubic meters come automatic to the mixer and from the mixer to truck mixer). He can use automatic and manual. But for choosing the mix that we need, it come from the lab, for example C25, that material must to approve in the lab and after it enter on machine and then the machine start the bunching (120 cubic meters per hours).

Now after the concrete is ready to go to supply we follow the concrete to costruction site and we take the cube to test it. We have a team that go to the site to check. The cube should be dive in the water. On 7 days we use before tasting, we can do 7 days, 14 days, 21 days and 28 days the last. The 7 days are used for determining the request if you need the target strength and to verify if this strength that is required is good, we test and monitor ourselves on 7 days.

Another machine we use for the block and for the concrete sometimes. It can be convert pushing a button, it start to use concrete and also it full automatic. The material came to the mixer to go finally into the block machine to do blocks. The material pass through in the machine block and it convert the concrete in blocks. It is semi automatic (6000 block per day). We are doing the plate, also we have all the size of block…we custom income (for istance 6 inches solid).

The mix design depend from place to place and from the material, maybe another place can’t use the same mix that we are using here. It depend on the country, the area, which kind of material. You can bring a mix design from USA but when we test the material and check this material, the result is not the same so you need to restart the mix design with local raw material after testing. In the same country in the north for example, they can’t use what I can use here, so the mix design depend on the materials, for this reason we went first to the lab, everything is come to the lab first, when you get your result test on your materials you have a knowledge for doing a mix design that you can use.