May 22, 2007
Alcoa wins sustainability award
Alcoa Australia Rolled Products at Yennora has won a prestigious award recognising it as one of Western Sydney’s most sustainable businesses.
Alcoa was announced as the winner of the Excellence in Business Practice – Sustainability category at the Western Sydney Industry Awards on Friday 18 May.

Alcoa was also awarded Highly Commended in the Innovation category for a unique coating process known as the ‘Dunk Tank’ that produces aluminium sheet suitable for can ends and wine screw tops.

Over 2,000 Western Sydney businesses entered the sought after awards.  Western Sydney is the leading manufacturing region in NSW and Australia and Alcoa was one of only a handful that won two awards, competing against some of the biggest names in Australia.

The black tie event was hosted by the Minister for Western Sydney in the presence of the Premier of New South Wales.  Seven hundred and fifty Western Sydney business leaders attended the event at Sydney Olympic Park.

Alcoa Australia Rolled Products Location Manager at Yennora John Costley said that winning the awards demonstrated the business’ commitment to operating in a sustainable manner.

“Our sustainability model encompasses economic, environmental and social performance and embeds sustainability not just into every part of the business but into everybody’s job.

A recent example of building a sustainable business is the continuous improvement exercise we did on our melting furnaces in April this year.  We had 11 shopfloor, maintenance and supervisory employees working together with technical experts. The end result has been to reduce natural gas consumption and greenhouse gas generation by 9.3% per tonne, decrease cycle time, and increase output.

That’s what sustainability is about.  We are also counting down to celebrating two years without a Lost Work Day injury in June,” he said.

John Costley thanked all employees at Yennora for their contribution to winning the awards.

For further details contact: Josephine Parrett 02 9681 9554 or 0404 800 542

Background
 
The Western Sydney Industry Awards
Celebrating their ninth year, the Western Sydney Industry Awards (WSIA) are recognised as the most prestigious regional awards in Australia, acknowledging and rewarding excellence, innovation and leadership across Western Sydney’s diverse range of industry sectors.

Western Sydney is home to 1 in 10 Australians and the country’s third largest regional economy after Sydney and Melbourne.  It is the largest manufacturing region in the Australia and the location for 150 of Australia’s top 500 companies.  A total of 242,000 businesses operate in Western Sydney.

Dunk Tank
The nine metre long Dunk Tank forms the key part of a manufacturing line at Alcoa ARP Yennora known as the Endline. Around 40% of the original Endline has been retained producing savings of approximately 50% of the cost of a new facility built from scratch.

The Endline produces high quality coated sheet suitable for applications including drink can ends and wine closure caps, or ‘screw tops’. The coating process occurs in the innovative Dunk Tank.

Aluminium sheet passes along the Endline and into the Dunk Tank through rollers that apply the necessary amount of tension. The sheet enters the tank through a narrow opening where it passes under a ‘lift roll’ before entering the immersion bath. The sheet spends exactly five seconds completely submerged in the bath as it continues to travel to the opposite end of the tank and exits through another narrow opening.

The Dunk Tank lift roll is the key to the tank’s flexibility and the quality of the finished product. The lift roll moves up or down depending on the speed of the line to adjust the length of aluminium sheet that is immersed at any one time.

There are excellent prospects for the screw top market as the world embraces this arguably superior method of wine closure. Major European buyers Sainsbury and Tescos will now only accept wine under aluminium screw top, and Penfolds currently have their Grange Hermitage under trial.