Boral continues to blame Australia’s depressed housing market for its recent cost cuts, assets sales and job cuts. The building materials group is currently in the process of axing 700 jobs across its operations but a spokeswoman for Boral said the only worker to lose a job out of the merger of its construction material and cement divisions was construction materials manager Murray Read.
As a result of Boral?s organisational restructure, Read?s position of divisional managing director, Boral Construction Materials will be made redundant and he will leave the organisation on 1 July this year. Murray has been with Boral for 28 years, working in plasterboard in Australia and Asia, and construction materials and has run the division since mid-2010.
Joseph Goss, a senior executive in the cement division of Lafarge North America, has been appointed to manage the newly merged division, effective from 1 April, 2013. Goss brings substantial experience in the global cement industry and engineering sectors. In addition to his time with Lafarge, he has spent 16 years in general management, marketing, sales and product innovation roles.
In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange, Boral said that Goss? credentials in lean manufacturing, safety management and sales and marketing were key priorities for the company. Goss also has experience in delivering restructuring programs and improvements in supply chain management across geographically diverse facilities.
Consolidated division
?The consolidation of construction materials and cement into a single division is the next step of Boral?s restructuring initiatives and reinforces the importance of these Australian businesses in the Group?s portfolio,? said Boral?s CEO and managing director Mike Kane.
?Just as Boral?s aggregate business integrates downstream into our concrete and asphalt operations, and our bitumen supply flows into our asphalt business, Boral?s cement business provides a strategically important input into Boral?s concrete operations. It therefore makes sense to bring these operations together under one leadership team.?
Boral Construction Materials & Cement will be Boral?s largest division.
Current executive general managers including Ross Harper, EGM cement, Shane Graham, EGM major projects, and four regional executive general managers – Paul Dalton with responsibility for Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, Greg Price managing New South Wales and the ACT, Steve Pyne managing Queensland and the Northern Territory, and Wayne Manners in Western Australia – will remain with the new division.
Sources: Boral, AAP