Not just a walk in the Kamberg

Stack sampling workshop balances business and pleasure

You’ll be forgiven for thinking the 10 ECOSERV stack sampling staff were having a nice little fishing holiday in Kamberg. But you’d be only half right. The fishing weekend was the tail-end of a two-day training workshop to sweep out cobwebs and polish their badges.

Held from 11-14 November, the internal workshop was an opportunity for the stack sampling staff to regroup and look at their work objectively and critically. Ensuring quality is up to scratch is part of ECOSERV director Allan Jansen’s portfolio.

“The workshop gave us an opportunity to review the quality of our service and equipment without getting bogged down by reams of paperwork. We highlighted shortfalls in looking after equipment and designed shortfalls out of Moyomnandi. The training was excellent. We revised procedures and are in process of writing them up in a quick and easy-to-read flow chart format. I have no doubt the workshop will prove to be a major contributor to getting quality where we want it to be.”

Allan says the training workshop was the first forum where the Johannesburg and Durban staff could brainstorm as a group.

“It is so good to share ideas,” says Allan. “The Jo’burg staff work in isolation from the rest of ECOSERV and it is easy for us to feel cut off. The workshop forged a strong sense of company and purpose.”

Allan has been instrumental to ECOSERVs stack sampling success in Rustenburg, having recently secured two impressive contracts: one with SA Ferrochrome and the other with Xstrata’s Rustenburg plant. “We had such success from all the lessons we learned at Xstrata’s Wonderkop and Rovan plants that they commissioned us to repeat the exercise at Rustenburg,” he says.

Xstrata is the biggest ferro-alloy producer in the world and has major mining interests in Australia. It is important for ECOSERV to be involved in servicing major players at this stage in the evolution of environmental law, says Allan.

“These clients are also using us to measure the performance of their plants in terms of efficiency and occupational hygiene. We provide a service which enables them to direct their expansion and therefore play a major role in their business. To keep our slice of the market we have to keep our prices right and our quality spot on. We work hard and deliver on time. These contracts are something to be proud of and are a vote of confidence in ECOSERV. And there a lot more coming,” Allan hints.