During the summer there have been some important upgrades at Naantali SSC these include investments in the Lankhorst system in coil storage to improve safety and the replacement of a strapping mechanism in the packing section of the main slitting line to improve efficiency.  

One of the most dangerous places in a steel service center is coil storage, at Naantali SSC we handle steel coils up to 15.000 kg. The storing, moving and manoeuvring of heavy steel coils has to be precise as wrongly stacked coils can cause great danger. Coils must be secured carefully as they are difficult to control if they move. Previously these coils were secured against each other and supported by wooden triangles, the same as many other service centers. Safely moving and handling of these supports is difficult and can be very challenging.   

“We started improving our coil storage safety a few years ago by replacing around a third of the supports with the Lankhorst system supports. We have now doubled this and plan in the near future to cover every coil place with the Lankhorst system”, says production manager Henri Lehtonen. He continues, “safety is our number one priority at Tata Steel and our employees must be able to trust that they are working in an environment where risks are recognized and eliminated in time. This investment ensures higher levels of safety for our people and our workers in coil storage are extremely happy this.”Naantali SSC also made another investment by replacing the strapping machine on the main slitting line.  The old and inefficient strapping machine was replaced with a new strapping machine using plastic straps. “Investment was necessary not only because the old strapping machine was a bottle neck in the strip line but also availability of spare parts and maintenance had become harder”, says Lehtonen. He added “with the new packing machine the packing of the slit coils is now more efficient which has resulted in increased productivity of whole line. Other benefits include increased work satisfaction of the line personnel and lowered maintenance costs.”