OREANDA-NEWS. On January 17, 2014 Interpipe Steel celebrated its second birthday since its first heat was produced. On the day, the mill introduced new objectives: to achieve the world's best efficiency indices, equivalent to the production of 1.5 million tons of steel a year, and processing costs of less than 100 US dollars per ton of billets.

Over the last two years Interpipe Steel has melted the first million tons of steel and reached its monthly production target rate. The mill's manufacturing facilities have enabled, not only the provision of steel billets for the company's pipe and wheel production facilities, but also the delivery of steel billets to external customers.

Interpipe Steel Director Gennadiy Yesaulov said: “Much work has been carried out over these two years. After the launch of Interpipe Steel all employees faced a great challenge - they had to learn to operate the state-of-the-art equipment and machinery and to master all technological processes. We have successfully managed this task and now the mill is close to reaching its designed performance rates. As such, our new objective is to focus on efficiency”.

To achieve the goal set out for the mill, an up-to-date management system has been introduced.The “world class production” project implements the world's best practices and approaches aimed at boosting the efficiency and performance rates. The list of the project's basic practices includes employee motivation, distribution of roles and responsibility, formation of effective teams, introduction of the “5S” system, continuous improvement, safety, and environment protection. Their introduction will enable the launch of key practices - production management, repairs' management, and technical maintenance management.

“We strive to achieve the world's best production efficiencies, - Andrea Michielan, Interpipe Steel Operational Director, commented. - We already have two components - state-of-the-art equipment and young highly qualified employees. Now it is important for us to organise the production process to deliver the highest possible efficiency. This is exactly the condition to attainthe best economic indices. The list of our objectives includes the achievement of performance, equivalent to the production of 1.5 million tons of steel a year, and processing costs of less than 100 US dollars per ton of billets”.

Reference:

Interpipe Steel is the first metallurgical plant, built in Ukraine from scratch for almost half a century. Taking into account its state-of-the-art technologies, working conditions, and environmental protection standards, it is often seen as representing a new phase in the industry's development. The project has amounted to a total investment of 700 million US dollars. Interpipe Steel produces round billets for pipe and wheel steel grades for the company's own production needs. In 2013 Interpipe Steel commenced the deliveries of billets to external customers.