FONTANA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 7, 2005--When two of the world's largest names in the steel industry came together to establish a viable West Coast steel source in the U.S., some hot results were nearly a guarantee. California Steel Industries, Inc. (CSI) - a collaboration between Japan's JFE Steel Corporation and Brazil's Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) - has more than tripled its production output since its founding in 1984 and grown by 100% just since 1992. CSI is now the leading producer of flat rolled steel in the Western United States, boasting the widest range of products.
On a quest to produce the highest quality steel and achieve production levels to support its growing customer needs, CSI completed a five-year, $265-million modernization program. This spirit of modernization and improvement continues - and the team at the company's #2 Continuous Galvanizing Line recently embarked on its own mission, implementing a high-speed data acquisition system from Binnington Development Corporation, using technology from GE Fanuc Automation, a unit of GE Infrastructure. With the new system in place, the team on #2 Galvanizing Line helped heat up performance at CSI. Results on the line include:
-- Significantly decreasing downtime due to unscheduled shutdowns;
-- Achieving tremendous cost savings, with project return on investments (ROI) in less than three months;
-- Increasing the line's exit by 3-4 seconds, alleviating a process bottleneck and enabling faster production speeds;
-- Reducing material scrap from unscheduled line shutdowns;
-- Boosting product quality with smoother production; and
-- Putting in place a system for analysis and long-term continuous improvement.
Galvanizing Production
CSI produces galvanized coil and sheet by adding a zinc coating to cold-rolled steel for additional corrosion resistance. The company offers a broad range of thicknesses, widths, and coatings of galvanized products. The two galvanizing lines at the 450-acre site each focus on different thicknesses and unique customer applications.
On #2 Galvanizing Line, CSI produces very light, very high quality steel - often in the range of .0098-inch gauge. The team runs an average of 300 tons/shift, and speed and quality are essential. The galvanized steel from #2 Line usually gets fabricated right into end products for building and construction such as HVAC, roofing, decking, flexible conduit, studs and siding, walk-in coolers and drop-ceiling rack systems. The finish must be exceptional, as CSI's customers often paint the steel prior to fabrication and require a smooth, consumer-ready finish.
With demand running high, the team on #2 Galvanizing Line needed to improve productivity by reducing unexplained shutdowns that were occurring approximately every three weeks and lasting 10-15 minutes. Each shutdown resulted in lost production time as well as material scrap.
"Production runs so fast and is such a series of complex processes that in many cases, our system could not log the data at a high enough resolution to capture the reasons for the line stop," explains Lead Electrical Maintenance Electrician Larry Gantner. "We were trying to troubleshoot with any data that we had, but the potential was there to lose thousands of dollars per minute during each line stop."
In combination with GE's hardware and software technology, the CSI and Binnington Development engineering team implemented a FOCUS high-speed data acquisition system. With high-speed data acquisition, CSI can optimize processes using information from the controllers to reveal small flaws in process sequencing. For example, valves opening fractions of a second too soon or too late, motors starting or stopping a few hundredths of a second late, and sensors not being detected in a timely manner are common sequencing errors that may only be in the range a few hundredths of a second and not be detectable with conventional means. Now, with the ability to detect small flaws, CSI has the opportunity to make corrections for a dramatic cumulative improvement.
"In steel processes, it is critical for timing to be right," notes Senior Electrical Engineer Marc Sandford. "Galvanizing - normally - doesn't stop for anything. And, if we can increase speed, we can lower costs."
For the team on the #2 Galvanizing Line, the spirit of modernization and improvement is alive and well - helping CSI meet production and quality goals, maintain the broadest range of galvanized products in the industry, and "steal" the show from its competitors.
-- GE Fanuc Automation - www.gefanuc.com
-- Binnington Development Corporation - www.binnington.com
-- California Steel Industries, Inc. - www.californiasteel.com
Contacts
GE Fanuc Automation, a unit of GE Infrastructure
Media Contact:
Alicia Bowers, 717-285-4400
[email protected]