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C O M P A N YO V E R V I E W
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Written by: Matthew Staff Produced by: James Pepper
Compass Minerals
Advanced Mining Technologies and Expanding Deepstore Division Maintain Compass Minerals
UK’s Continuous Improvement Ethos
COMPASS MINERALS UK LTD
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Compass Minerals UK Ltd’s levels of annual success may be dependent on factors out of its control, but has for the past two
decades ensured that its flexible approach, high-quality mining techniques and commitment to continuous improvement keeps the company prepared for any eventuality.
As one of the UK’s primary miners, storers and distributors of rock salt to de-ice the country’s roads each winter, the unpredictable nature of the industry means that the ability to remain entrepreneurial and innovative is imperative, and this is something that Compass Minerals UK has been able to achieve amid the core backdrop of key customer collaboration, employee
Aerial photo of the Compass Minerals main site
The company known as Salt Union Ltd until recently is ensuring the ongoing development of a business which can be traced back to the 1840’s through its commitment to flexibility, safety and value-added operations
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improvement and service diversification.In such a niche market, building a reputation
is paramount, but Compass Minerals UK, formerly known as Salt Union, has certainly been around long enough to boast such acclaim.
Director of Compass Minerals UK’s Salt Business, Ian Gordon explained: “We have just recently changed our name from Salt Union Limited to Compass Minerals UK Ltd. Unifying ourselves as one Compass Minerals allows us to build on our long history of which Salt Union has helped build.
“We have been owned by Compass Minerals since 2001 and Compass Minerals floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 2003. We are able to leverage the expertise that they have in the US and Canada in areas of salt and agricultural specialty fertiliser products, while carrying on the same good work we’ve always done as Salt Union under various ownerships.”
In the UK, the company now consists of the one salt mine in Winsford, Cheshire where it has the capability to mine 1.5 million tonnes a year to a customer base comprising local authorities as well as the highways agency to ensure the safety of UK roads.
Sustainable InvestmentsWith such a long and reputable history in the UK, it would be easy for a company to become embroiled in old-fashioned methods or complacency in its operations, but Compass
Ian Gordon, Salt
Business Director
Gordon Dunn,
Managing Director
More Power Means More ProductivityTo meet the challenges of hard-rock, industrial mineral mining, we’ve engineered our most powerful and most productive continuous miner yet.
Outfitted with a solid head or RipperveyorTM drum, the Joy HM series continuous miner provides smooth, fast cutting action through the toughest of bedded materials. When equipped with our FACEBOSS® control platform, mine operations can push productivity even further with optimised cutting rates during cycles and automated sequences that keep the material flowing — even during shift changes.
To get more power and more productivity, go with the proven solution for industrial mineral mines around the world — the Joy continuous miner HM series.
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TECHNOLOGY
Joy Global, P&H, Joy, Ripperveyor and FACEBOSS are trademarks of Joy Global Inc. or one of its affiliates.© 2014 Joy Global Inc. All rights reserved.
JOY GLOBAL Mining Global Oct HM Series.indd 1 10/6/14 9:20 AM
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Minerals is certainly not a brand to rest on its laurels and has subsequently invested heavily into the ongoing development of its equipment, mining techniques and overall sustainability.
“We currently mine almost exclusively with Joy Global’s heavy duty continuous miners, moving on from the drill and blast method that was used in the past,” said Managing Director, Gordon Dunn. “As mining has developed it has been an ideal application in the salt mine to use continuous miners and we’ve recently purchased our third which we’re building now.
“We’ve also spent the past two years developing into new reserves, 100 metres below where we’ve historically worked, in a lower bed of salt, and we will be in those reserves for the next 30 years.”
Continuous miner
excavator machine
More Power Means More ProductivityTo meet the challenges of hard-rock, industrial mineral mining, we’ve engineered our most powerful and most productive continuous miner yet.
Outfitted with a solid head or RipperveyorTM drum, the Joy HM series continuous miner provides smooth, fast cutting action through the toughest of bedded materials. When equipped with our FACEBOSS® control platform, mine operations can push productivity even further with optimised cutting rates during cycles and automated sequences that keep the material flowing — even during shift changes.
To get more power and more productivity, go with the proven solution for industrial mineral mines around the world — the Joy continuous miner HM series.
JoyGlobal.com
TECHNOLOGY
Joy Global, P&H, Joy, Ripperveyor and FACEBOSS are trademarks of Joy Global Inc. or one of its affiliates.© 2014 Joy Global Inc. All rights reserved.
JOY GLOBAL Mining Global Oct HM Series.indd 1 10/6/14 9:20 AM
Joy Global Inc. is a worldwide leader in high-productivity mining solutions. Through its market-leading Surface and Underground Business Segments, Joy Global manufactures and markets original equipment and aftermarket parts and services for the mining industries. Joy Global’s products and related services are used extensively for the mining of coal, copper, iron ore, oil sands, gold and other mineral resources.
Website: www.joyglobal.com
SUPPLIER PROFILEJOY GLOBAL
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COMPASS MINERALS UK LTD
Operations in Winsford Mine
Setting up now for long-term sustainability is a hallmark of Compass Minerals’ success in the UK, and the benefits of the continuous miners has not gone unnoticed, with the parent company replicating the investments and operations in Canada to strive for the same results.
Dunn continued: “Over a five-year period, Compass Minerals has invested more in the
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UK than it had done in the previous 15 years.“We’ve put in the new continuous miner
and a new hoisting system, we’re installing the new heavy duty drift conveyor that is a mile long and can pull 1,800 tonnes per hour for a mile, and we’ve also invested heavily into crushing and screening.
“Compass Minerals is investing heavily into the sustainability of the overall facility here in the UK.”
DeepStoreSafeguarding the future of the company even further, one of Compass Minerals’ key areas of growth in recent years has been the initiation and development of its vast storage space with its DeepStore business.
Established in 1998 at its Winsford site before acquiring two further locations in London in 2007, the concept behind DeepStore is to fill the void left behind after mining has occurred to store archives, documents and possessions 150 metres underground in what has been a highly complex and successful initiative.
Gordon explained: “We effectively create rooms in the space left behind when the salt has been taken out of the mine, and we store documents for some very well-known customers.”
These customers include financial institutions, police departments, universities and hospitals making the operation not only highly significant but also massive in its stature; the area equivalent to that of 700 football pitches.
The mine has a long
and successful history
“Compass Minerals is investing heavily into the sustainability of the overall facility here in the UK”– Gordon Dunn, Managing Director, Compass Minerals UK Ltd
M Woodhouse Transport Ltd.
M Woodhouse Transport is family owned and operates as a bulk haulage business, which was established in the 1950’s. The company went Limited in 1967 and moved from its riverside location in the heart of Lancaster to its purpose built 4 acre site adjacent to the M6 at Junction34 in 1982.
We are pleased to have been associated with compass minerals as a prime haulier since the year 2000. You see us everywhere
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Safecote Limited is an innovative winter services solutions company offering tailored products to help local authorities improve the effectiveness of their winter snow and ice management.
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The idea behind DeepStore was to create a storage facility naturally free from the dangers of ultraviolet light, vermin or flooding, and as the mining operation expands, so too will the areas of space left behind to develop the business further.
“It’s a very green re-use of mined areas of the mine, so essentially a great way of getting further value out of it,” Dunn said. “We currently have around two million boxes stored underground, with customers such as The National Archives, capitalising on the ideal temperature and humidity, which is an ideal environment for long term archives and especially paper records.”
Having been awarded ISO9001 and ISO14001 certifications already as a result of its four-pronged security, technology, quality and sustainability model, Compass Minerals is keen to push forward DeepStore even further in the future as a much more consistent and stable source of value to support its salt operations.
Dunn added: “DeepStore is part of our plan to expand the alternative uses of the mine, which
Inside Deepstore
“We currently have around two million boxes stored underground, with customers such as The National Archives, capitalising on the ideal temperature and humidity, which is an ideal environment for long term archives and especially paper records”
– Gordon Dunn
Storing the paper
records inside
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isn’t just records management, to grow and support the mine so it is less weather effected.”
Flexible business modelDeepStore is just one example of the levels of flexibility that Compass Minerals has historically had to engrain within the fabric of the organisation, stemming from the simple fact that weather is uncontrollable and unpredictable.
Severe winters in the UK can lead to excessive need for rock salt on the roads, sometimes even beyond what’s available and stored within each local facility. Conversely, mild winters can lead to too much salt being stored over that year.
“Our average production rate over 10 years is
Mining operations are prepared to cater for extreme requirements
“DeepStore is part of our plan to expand the alternative uses of the mine, which isn’t just records management, to grow and support the mine so it is less weather effected”
– Gordon Dunn
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around 1 million tonnes,” Gordon said. “However, over those 10 years we’ve never had an average year. It’s either at one extreme or the other which requires a very flexible business model.
“We therefore run a steady state model where we produce a fixed amount each month, and let the stocks on the surface float depending on the demand to ensure we can supply our customers.”
This strategy is not only dependent on the weather at the end of the yearly cycle, but is also dependent on close collaboration with the company’s key customers and them setting their own demand levels correctly.
Gordon continued: “We encourage customers to hold a certain level of stock. We provide guidelines on holding a certain
Waste mine services
Loading waste onto
trucks
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Waste removal inside the mine
number of days’ worth in the event of a winter or snow crisis kicking in.
“We help to make sure they are adequately stocked and ready for the next winter period from December into January and February, because severe weather limits how much we can dispatch from the mine each day and can cause logistical challenges on restocking customers to their needs on a timely basis.
“That’s why it’s so important that we have the right equipment in place and the flexibility of man power contracts too for when these events occur.”
“We encourage customers to hold a certain level of stock. We provide guidelines on holding a certain number of days”– Gordon Dunn
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Continuous improvementComplementing Compass Minerals UK’s flexible business model, diverse service range and proactive capital investment strategy, is arguably its most important internal facet in the form of its own continuous improvement ethos and forward-thinking approach.
Having invested a lot into continuous improvement programmes across the company in the search for incremental development, there is special focus turned to the bottom line and the progression of the people within the business.
“We invest very heavily in training and monitor, as a KPI (Key Performance Indicator), the amount of training per employee and the value to make sure we’re putting the right amount in,” Dunn said. “In regards to the new equipment, all the
Continuous mining
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Storage areas
in the mine
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craftsmen that would be using the equipment will have been sent to the manufacturer in the US to have hands-on experience with them, ensuring better maintenance performance for the company in the future.
“We make sure the workforce feels part of the incremental improvements in efficiency and have a say in all of it, and they’re happy to do so because they can see the improvements being made in their methods of work which are now safer, cleaner and less labour intensive.”
Looking forward and Compass Minerals UK plans to have moved completely into the new mining area over the next five years, as well as enjoying a new power supply to the mine to enforce even more flexibility and safety in matching demand.
Dunn concluded: “We’re always focused on improving and we aim to run more equipment simultaneously in the future to be more flexible dependent on the weather.
“Part of the value we provide is this guaranteed level of service. Our customers know we will be here for the next 30 years and that we will be able to provide for them for at least that length of time.”
Company Information
I N D U S T RY
Mining
H E A D Q U A RT E R S
Cheshire, UK
F O U N D E D
1992
E M P L O Y E E S
200
R E V E N U E
£50m (2013)
P R O D U C T S /
S E R V I C E S
Salt mining
“We’re always focused on improving and we aim to run more equipment simultaneously in the future to be more flexible…”– Gordon Dunn
COMPASS MINERALS
Compass Minerals UK Limited, Astbury House, Bradford Road
Tel. +44 0870 532 9723
[email protected] www.compassmineralsuk.com
