February 28, 2024

The Quant Vale team awarded by our customer

The Quant Vale Vitoria team has achieved first place in the KAIZEN Awards for Collaborating Companies, announced by our customer Vale, with the manufacturing of a cart for transporting stands. This innovation makes the work safer, while increasing efficiency.

At Vale Vitoria, Brazil, iron pellets are produced, and Quant is responsible for the industrial maintenance involving mechanical activities in furnaces, fans, belt conveyors, and thermal insulation.

The Plant 8 team created an innovative system of Ccarts for transporting stands, which resulted in several benefits in terms of productivity, speed, and safety, leading to the recognition with this Award that our client quarterly bestows among its collaborating companies.

Transporting the stands – which are support structures guiding the conveyor belt used to move the iron pellets along the transportation line – presented many difficulties. Faced with this, the team devised a cart divided into two parts with wheels made from rollers to avoid vibrations. It features a directional lever and a support for pushing during uphill sections. Previously, manual transportation was conducted, where one person walked backwards and the other forward, posing risks of falling, stumbling, limb crushing, and part dropping.

With this invention, the winning team achieved the following benefits:

Elimination of the risks of manual transportation, facilitation of transportation, reduction of execution time, reduced effort to transport stands to the installation site, decreased risk of injury for team members, improved ergonomic posture during transportation.