Advanced Construction Materials Series – Ready Mix Concrete: PSDAS seminar on “Concrete Production in Hong Kong – Past, Present and Future: Some reminiscences"
(Jointly organised with the Civil Division and Hong Kong Productivity Council)

Date, Time & Venue
28 April 2011 (Fri); 6:30pm - 8:00pm; 1/F Lecture Theatre, Hong Kong Productivity Council

Programme Highlights
Mr. Lo will give a brief history and offer insder’s insights of the current trend as well as the future challenges of the concrete industry for achieving economical and sustainable construction. Is concrete production a state-of-art engineering process or a simple kitchen-like ingredient preparation job? Mr. Lo will tell us the answers to this question. 

Speakers
Mr. Frank Lo, Chairman of the Concrete Producers Association of Hong Kong.

Registration & Enquiries
This seminar is free of charge and the number of participants is limited to 80. For registration, please complete and return the Standard Reply Form to Email: hkiemat@hkpc.org. For enquiries, please contact Ms. Kit HO at Tel: (852) 2788 5533. CPD certificates will be provided.

Advanced Construction Materials Series – Ready Mix Concrete: PSDAS Seminar on Concrete Production in Hong Kong – Past, Present and Future: Some Reminiscences

By Ir Sam Choy and Ir Corey Ho

A seminar entitled Concrete Production in Hong Kong – Past, Present and Future: Some Reminiscences was held on 28 April 2011 at the lecture hall of the Hong Kong Productivity Council. The event, being the first activity of the Advanced Construction Materials Series-Ready Mix Concrete, was jointly organized by the Civil Division and Hong Kong Productivity Council and sponsored by the Professional Services Development Assistance Scheme (PSDAS) of the Hong Kong SAR. Over 180 participants attended the seminars.

Mr Frank Lo, Chairman of the Concrete Producers Association of Hong Kong was invited to share his views on the concrete industry of Hong Kong. Mr Lo first introduced the history and evolution of the industry. The use of concrete for construction went back to as early as 2000 years ago when the Roman Coliseum was constructed. The first ready-mix concrete batching plant in Hong Kong was set up in early 1960s during which production facilities were primitive. Rocks were blasted in quarries by hand-operated air hammers with workers climbed on rock faces. Aggregates were produced by hand-grading by women and children as a family business.

The construction industry was prosperous from 1980s to early 2000s with great demand for high quality ready-mix concrete as a result of the booming economy and rapid infrastructure development. To cope with the changes, concrete production was progressively modernized by introducing new technologies to automate and improve production process. Advance quality management practices were also put in place to tighten quality control to meet construction requirements. The concrete industry has contributed great effort to shape the modern skyline of today’s Hong Kong.    

Mr Lo went on to compare engineers for making concrete to chefs for gourmet food, where both need to have the necessary skills and knowledge for production from selection of raw materials to design of receipt, management of production process, quality and unforeseeable risks, and most important amongst all, both engineers and chefs should have the dedication that put their hearts in their work for delivering good products and services to meet customers’ requirements.

The seminar ends with an interactive question-and-answer session. On behalf of the participants and organizing divisions, Ir SS Kong of the Civil Division gave a vote of thanks and Ir Prof CM Tam, Chairman of the Materials Division presented a souvenir to Mr Lo as a token of thanks for giving the insightful talk.