Lafarge, in Burton-upon-Trent, England, is the world’s leading producer of building material and one of the first customers outside Sweden to test one of the latest projects in Volvo CE’s environmental programme: Eco Operator training. The hauler, wheel loader and excavator operators at this facility have now completed the first part of the training which uses a number of different steps to teach the drivers to work more efficiently and thereby reduce their fuel consumption and carbon emissions.
Paul Gilfedder has been driving a hauler at Lafarge for several years, but he is still open to the idea of becoming even better at his job.
“I think the training has been good. There are many procedures to think about when it comes to saving fuel. For example, I make sure that I turn off the engine if there are several haulers waiting in a queue to be loaded,” he says.
Site manager Ian Adcock is very pleased with the way the drivers have responded to the training.
“We are hoping to reduce fuel consumption and further increase the level of safety here at the quarry. The lads were doing a good job before the Eco Operator training, but they are even better now. It is also a real advantage that the instructor comes here and teaches the drivers, with our situation as the starting point, rather than us trying to send all our drivers for training somewhere else,” adds Ian Adcock.
The Eco Operator training is part of Volvo CE’s ongoing efforts to reduce the emissions produced by its machines. So far, the Swedish customers who have completed the training have succeeded in reducing their fuel consumption by five per cent or more, thereby saving millions of Swedish kronor and cutting their carbon emissions by hundreds of tonnes.
At the English quarry in Burton-upon-Trent, all the operators appear to agree that the Eco Operator training has been good, both for their own work and for their employer’s profitability. As Raymond Davis, who has been driving an excavator for 30 years, puts it, “You’re never too old to learn something new!”.
Read more at Volvo CE's global website: Volvo Eco Operator Training