🚜 **Optimizing Grading Processes at Balonne Shire QLD: A Success Story** 🌟

Balonne Shire Council boasts over 2,000km of unsealed roads, managed by three dedicated grading crews. To enhance productivity and maintain quality, we undertook a series of grading trials to standardise and optimise the grading process and movements.

The new grading standard includes:
–         De-grassing and shoulder gravel retrieval, with a preference for shoulder gravel retrieval.
–         Heavy watering of the road surface before cutting and mixing the material across the road in one pass, maintaining a shin windrow height for effective compaction.
–         Additional wetting of the road before and during laying out the material in two passes, one over and back.
–         Following up with a tyre roller and finishing with a steel drum roller to break down larger rocks.
–         Obtaining cross fall for drainage.

This grading standard has been documented with suggested movements and production targets for each step, including photos and video examples to ensure consistency and effective communication with all crews.

A few weeks into this new process, Council’s Road Supervisor reported that both production and quality had increased, and that training has been effective in making the necessary positive changes.

Proud of the team at Balonne for their hard work and commitment to continuous improvement! 💪

Special thanks to Atem Jok and his team for organising the training.

Below is a sped-up version of the grading technique in action. 📹