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NRMCA Launches New Interactive Map to Highlight Building and Pavement Projects

NRMCA has launched ConcreteTracker.org this week, an online interactive map of concrete building and paving case studies throughout the United States. Building owners, developers, architects, engineers and others interested in seeing a concrete project near them can search the ConcreteTracker map to obtain information about a concrete building or paving project. ConcreteTracker supports NRMCA’s Building with Strength and Pave Ahead initiatives to promote concrete as the preferred solution for buildings and pavements.

There are literally millions of concrete projects located throughout the United States. Currently, there are over 260 projects entered on the ConcreteTracker map and NRMCA intends to add projects to the map as information about interesting projects becomes available. Visit www.ConcreteTracker.org to find a concrete project in your area.

NRMCA members, affiliates and partners are encourages to contact NRMCA to provide projects data to add to the map. For building projects, contact Lionel Lemay at LLemay@nrmca.org or 847-918-7101. For paving projects, contact Brian Killingsworth at BKillingsworth@nrmca.org or 210-508-4923.

Pavement

Regional ConcreteWorks Attendees Receive Downloads of Key Concrete Overlay Guides

While speaking at the North Central Regional ConcreteWorks (NC RCW) held recently in Fargo, ND, NRMCA Senior Vice President, Local Paving, Jon Hansen, referenced three publications that he believes should be required reading for everyone in the concrete industry wanting to learn about concrete overlays.

"We included the links for the downloads on the NC RCW followup and since then I have been asked by others to provide the information", Hansen added. "For the benefit of everyone, here are the names and respective links to download free PDF versions of each."

"If you want to promote and build a market of concrete overlays, much like producers, cement people and contractors have across the U.S., information in the three guides, read in the order listed above, will put you on the path to being the expert in your market," Hansen concluded.

For more information contact Jon Hansen at jhansen@nrmca.org.

Buildings

Build With Strength Team Makes Inroads in Strong Texas Market

NRMCA staff has been working with member Martin Marietta to advance concrete construction to the mid-rise building market in San Antonio, reports Senior Director of Building Innovation Micahel Wymant. Martin Marietta has been instrumental in introducing the Build With Strength (BWS) team to many city and private opportunities, he said. Just prior to Hurricane Harvey arriving in Texas on August 24, Wymant presented at an event with Architectura SA and ICF firm Futurestone to developers, builders and architects. His NRMCA colleague Chris Dagosta also attended.

"This is an area of the country experiencing significant growth and also has significant risk due to storms," Wymant said. "There are some great examples here already of resilient building with concrete; this is a place where it should be the norm."

The event was hosted at Architectura SA office; which is a insulated concrete form building. Attendees experienced first hand the performance of the building. The BWS team is pursing active government and private projects in San Antonio as a result, Wymant said.

For more information, contact Michael Wymant at mwymant@nrmca.org.

NRMCA Uses Sector-Specific Tool to Certify Producer Member EPD

As a leading program operator for the concrete industry, NRMCA recently verified Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for Producer member CEMEX. EPDs for CEMEX-Mexico Armas and Central plants (30 mixes each), and CEMEX-Panama Juan Diaz plant (eight mixes) report environmental information as a response to LEED project activity in each respective country. The EPDs were developed by CEMEX utilizing the Cement Sustainability Initiative’s Environmental Product Declaration Tool which was developed to facilitate the generation of sector-specific EPDs for cement and concrete. The cloud-based tool was designed to be easy-to-use in order to facilitate overall the process, and to reduce the costs of preparing environmental impact information from cement and concrete production. CEMEX EPDs were verified by the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute.

To date, the ready mixed concrete industry, including material suppliers, have 26 verified EPDs with a total of 8,194 products, by far the largest total of any building product category.

As part of the Build with Strength campaign, NRMCA promotes Strength Through Transparency for member and industry competitiveness in the green building marketplace and the trends toward product and company transparency.

For more information, contact James Bogdan at jbogdan@nrmca.org at 412-420-4138.

OES

Registration Continues for Fall Safety Course

Registration continues for NRMCA’s Fall 2017 Safety Course in Denver from October 17 - 19. Please note that this course has a limited number of seats and will sell out very soon. The 2.5-day course teaches participants about OSHA safety compliance, beginning with with why safety is so important and details the reasons why an effective safety program actually saves money through loss prevention and control. Participants learn about electrical safety, machine guarding, fall protection, hazard communication, confined spaces, personal protective equipment, firefighting and evacuation, maintenance shop safety, chute handling, fleet safety, pre-trip inspection and more.

Click here for location details, registration options and staff contacts.

Registration Continues for November Senior RMC Operations Manager Workshop

This new one-day interactive workshop for senior and middle operations and production managers will be held Tuesday, November 14, in Dallas. It will be preceded by a peer networking dinner the night before. When the workshop first ran in February, it sold out. As a result, NRMCA is offering it a second time in 2017 - please do not wait to register. Led by a former IBM executive coach who understands our industry’s business model, the workshop’s goal is to give attendees a head foundation for their 2018 strategic, organizational and personal skills that help them more effectively manage, coach, motivate and assess their teams as well as their direct report supervisors. The curriculum offers insight into peak performance and critical motivation factors that can lead to success in a a multi-layered team structure. This is NOT a workshop for entry-level supervisors.

Space is limited to 25 - do not delay registering.

Click here for more information and registration options.

Engineering

NRMCA Technical Short Course Sold Out for November

The NRMCA Concrete Technologist Training and Certification program (Short Course) being held at the RMC Research & Education Foundation Center in Silver Spring, MD, on November 6-10 is now sold out. Due to space restrictions no additional registrations will be accepted for this offering. People on the waiting list will be informed if there are cancellations. The next short course is scheduled for February 6-9, 2018, at Brookhaven College in Farmers Branch, TX (metropolitan Dallas). Details are being finalized and registration will open for this course soon. Interested persons should register early! The Regional Short Course in February is co-sponsored by the Texas Aggregates and Concrete Association (TACA).

The Short Course provides a fundamental understanding of concrete, aggregates and concrete making materials; requirements in industry codes and standards and proportioning concrete mixtures. Attendees have the opportunity to obtain industry-recognized NRMCA certifications: NRMCA Level 2 and 3 Concrete Technologist Certification and an optional NRMCA Grade II Field Testing Technician Certification. These industry certifications are essential for technical service personnel with suppliers of materials to the concrete industry and with concrete producers.

Click here for more Information or contact Karen Bean at kbean@nrmca.org.

NRMCA Completes Report on Measuring the Electrical Resistance of Fresh Concrete

NRMCA has completed a research project on a proposed ASTM Standard Practice on Measuring the Electrical Resistance of Fresh Concrete. The practice describes procedures for sampling and measuring the resistance of fresh concrete during setting and subsequent hardening under sealed conditions in the laboratory or in the field. The scope of the practice indicates that the measured resistance of concrete can be used to estimate the water-to-cementitious materials ratio (w/cm) of concrete delivered to a project site, among other characteristics. Relating the measured electrical resistance to attributes of the mixture proportions, such as water-cement ratio by mass (w/c), is explored for 11 different concrete mixtures prepared in the laboratory. In these mixtures, variables included w/c, paste content, air content, fly ash content, high range water reducer dosage, and cement alkali content.

For a specific mixture, changing mixing water content while maintaining the same cement content did show a linear change in measured resistance. Even when the w/cm was maintained at the same level, changing cement and cement alkali content had an impact on the measured resistance. Considering the variability of repeated measurements, the measured resistance was not sensitive enough to distinguish between mixtures where the w/c varied by 0.10 or less. If the sensitivity of the resistance measurements can be improved, this device can be used to monitor changes in w/cm for a specific concrete mixture with a pre-established correlation at a ready mixed concrete plant.

Click here to download the report. For more information, contact Karthik Obla at kobla@nrmca.org.

Education & Training

2017 Mixer Driver Recruitment & Retention Survey Report Now Available

NRMCA’s 2017 Mixer Driver Recruitment and Retention Survey report is now available for download. The findings examine the state of the mixer driver employment pool in 2016. Data reflects 30% of NRMCA’s estimated population of 75,000 mixer drivers. The survey also includes additional insight and comparisons from a number of entities, including the American Transportation Research Institute, the Society of Human Resource Management and employment numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The comprehensive data is a sound tool for producers’ executive, HR and operations staff to make decisions about the industry’s largest job classification.

Click here to download the Executive Summary (pdf). NRMCA members may click here to access the link to download the full report (pdf). For more information, contact Eileen Dickson at edickson@nrmca.org.

EAC Invites NRMCA Members to Meeting During ConcreteWorks

The NRMCA Educational Activities Committee (EAC) invites Association members to attend its next meeting, to be held during ConcreteWorks on Friday, September 29, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, Grapevine, TX. The main topic of discussion will focus on workforce recruitment, retention, and development.

EAC welcomes your participation and comments. For more information, contact committee liaison Eileen Dickson at edickson@nrmca.org.

Calendar

A Look Ahead

*Please note that e-mail and direct links to each event listed below can be accessed from NRMCA's Web site.

September 14, Ontario, CA

Regional ConcreteWorks Southwest Region

Email: Tamara Waugh, 240.485.1132

September 18 - 20, Salt Lake City

Concrete Durability Course