Anglesey Aluminium 
  
Anglesey Aluminium Metal Limited is an alumna rolling operation for its two equity partners RioTinto and Kaiser Aluminium & Chemical Corporation.

Anglesey Aluminium does not sell its finished product directly to its customers. The main purpose of its Welsh installation is to produce up to 142,000 tonnes per year of aluminium metal using the Hall-Heroult electrolytic process.

The metal is then cast into secondary products for sale – rolling ingot, extrusion billet or remelt ingot. The electrolytic process uses carbon anodes manufactured on the site and consumed as part of the smelting of aluminium oxide. Anode production capacity is approximately 30 anode blocks a day.

The plant, which opened more than 30 years ago, has undergone many technological changes since then.

The workforce has been greatly reduced in number. Through Continuous Improvement, Health and Safety Process improvement the workforce is now more skilled and the plant is producing three times as much metal per employee as it did when it started up in 1970.

Anglesey Aluminium is currently looking at introducing a business management system to encompass safety, quality and environment. The firm’s Quality Management system is currently accredited to BS EN ISO 9001:2000.

The company has recently introduced a host of additional safety initiatives which are aimed at behavioural change. The initiatives include the Dupont STOP system and also SAFER, an in-house designed pre-work risk assessment system.

The company’s safety management system is audited against the Rio Tinto world safety standards.

Mike Woodward, Anglesey Aluminium Metal Limited Systems Specialist, said the Inside Welsh Industry visit would cover continuous improvement in health and safety and also process improvement.

He said: “We have been working on altering the perceptions of the workforce towards health and safety, ensuring that there is a robust and reliable safety culture at the plant which in turn helps reduce the accident frequency rates.

“We are also keen to show visitors how the ongoing implementation of 5S is both improving work flow and orderliness.

“5S utilises the following process steps: Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardise and Sustain, which when used together show many benefits within the areas where they have been adopted.

“This results in an overall improvement within the manufacturing process.”