Mosaic Potash Belle Plaine, part of The Mosaic Company, is a global leader in crop nutrition. Located in Saskatchewan, Canada, they are dedicated to improving agricultural productivity through the efficient storage and distribution of potash. Committed to safety, Mosaic implements robust procedures and innovative solutions to protect its workforce and assets. And before deciding to use Hammerglass, they made their own rigorous testings.
Mosaic Potash Belle Plaine faced some safety risks in its reclaim environment. A previous incident, where a large mass of potash breached a loader’s windshield, underscored the need for enhanced protective measures. Sawyer Norrie is a Maintenance & Reliability Engineer at the company, and he explains the situation further:
“At Mosaic, we store our product in large piles in warehouses. In order to reclaim this product and load it into rail cars, we use wheel loaders to scoop up the product and move it to a central reclaim feeder location. In some cases, the product in these warehouses will set up, and form a shear face the loader operator must navigate. Mosaic has reclaim standard operating procedures that dictate that an operator cannot undercut a face or work a pile where the shear face is more than 2 meters above the height of the fully extended bucket, but there are still risks present that we looked to mitigate via upgraded protections. We simply needed a solution that could withstand the harshest conditions, like very cold weather, and worst-case scenarios and safeguard our operators during reclamation processes.”
“The Guard-system exceeded our expectations”
The solution that caught the team’s eye, was the Hammerglass Guard system, specifically designed to handle extreme conditions, and it was rigorously tested before implementing it in the work process.
“We were highly impressed with the Guard System’s durability and protection. We completed our tests in very cold weather (worst case) and the system still met and exceeded our expectations. We completed a series of tests using a single test subject, and that assembly was able to withstand all destructive tests even after being slightly damaged (deformation) from previous tests. Even in a slightly compromised state, Hammerglass Guard System was still able to provide adequate protection.”
