Saiccor - The First 50 Years 5.8 MB - Sappi

The First Fifty Years
No 11 digester ruptured violently in 2001, hurling debris hundreds of
metres and causing the death of the Operating Chargehand, Elliot Cele
1 February 1981 as Saiccor’s first Pulp and Paper diploma student at
the Technikon� After completing his studies, he was appointed a Shift
Superintendent on 1 January 1984� He was promoted to Production
Manager of the woodyard on 1 September 1990 and transferred to
the same position in the magnesium plant on 1 September 1995� He
was appointed Senior Production Manager on 1 January 1998� Tony
is a quiet but strong and capable individual�
In 1998 Saiccor’s environmental department (Mike Bentley, Derek
Airey and Samuel Mokoena) started preparing Saiccor for the
environmental management system, ISO 14000� Progress was slow,
and in February 2000 Wayne Weston, having recently completed
the LignoTech project, was appointed Project Manager for ISO
14000 to assist the environmental department� An environmental
policy was devised, which was followed by setting objectives and
targets for the mill� Procedures were then written after which line
managers wrote work instructions� By this time most people at
Saiccor were involved in ISO 14000� A pre-assessment audit was
carried out from 6–7 December 2000 by TUV (Bavaria), who
commented that good progress had been made� A pre-audit was
carried out from 2–4 April 2001 and a final audit date of 2–4 July
2001 was set�
On 1 January 2001 Craig Daniel joined Saiccor to supplement the
environmental department and was immediately launched into ISO
14000� A marine biologist (B�Sc�) and zoologist (M�Sc�), Craig had
180
Diagram of No 11 digester indicating
the piece that tore out
Tony Neave