Repeat customer, Part II: St. Marys Cement

One of the hallmarks of quality workmanship is the number of repeat customers it generates, and Dome Technology has worked with some of the biggest industry leaders on multiple projects. This is the second part in a five-week series highlighting a lineup of customers who’ve come back for more.

st. marys dome technology

St. Marys Cement

In Charlevoix, Michigan, USA, extreme weather and low temps dictate the amount of work and times of year it can be done. That’s why St. Marys Cement contracted with Dome Technology to build a 70,000-metric-ton storage dome that would allow them to bulk up on storage and to schedule maintenance outages during windows of better weather.

st. marys dome technology chicago

Following that project, St. Marys hired Dome Technology to build a Domesilo™ in Chicago, Illinois, USA, at an existing company transload facility that was receiving product made in St. Marys’ Charlevoix plant and other locations. Until this dome was built, the Chicago facility did not have the capacity to store the necessary volume shipped from the Charlevoix plant. The Chicago dome allows St. Marys “to get the dome filled before the lakes freeze over and (they) can’t get ships down there,” Dome Technology operations manager Brent Hardy said.

Total reclaim was a must, and rather than opting for a traditional cement-handling system, St. Marys chose a hybrid system of airslides paired with a Laidig reclaim screw, the same system used in Charlevoix. The dome advantages go far beyond better reclaim, reducing upfront costs, increasing safety, and decreasing energy usage.

“(St. Marys) was looking for additional storage capacity and an economical solution; domes provide both,” said St. Marys plant manager Randy Pryor. “The Laidig system greatly reduces (the safety) risk by providing inherent redundancy associated with having two different reclaim methods. Hard-pack areas or dead zones that are not reclaimed by the air-gravity conveyors are broken down and reclaimed by the screw conveyor without putting personnel at risk.”