The state-of-the-art facility, which will serve customers in the UK, Benelux, Germany, and Eastern Europe, will allow high strength and abrasion resistant steel products like Valast to be processed more quickly, accurately and sustainably.

The product of a significant investment by Tata Steel, the new facility is part of the company’s plans to prepare for increasing future demand for abrasion-resistant and high-strength premium steels.

The investment allows the Maastricht Service Centre to process high-tensile steel coils more quickly and accurately than ever before, while also adding a wide range of capabilities. It will be able to decoil Tata Steel’s ultra-high strength steel grades in coils weighing up to 40 tonnes with a yield strength of up to 1600 N/mn2. It can also handle widths of up to 2150mm and maximum sheet thicknesses of up to 13mm. Even when dealing with these extremely high-strength products, the new line promises flatness levels of less than 3mm per metre and very tight dimensional tolerances.

Just as impressive as the power of the line is its intelligent automated features, to further increase productivity and improve safety. These include automatic loading and threading, automatic destrapping by an anthropomorphic robot and automatic thickness and dimensional measurement. Coil entry can now be fully automated with no physical contact, owing to three levelling machines. Meanwhile, camera-based in-line measurement technology allows the facility to autonomously control the surface quality and dimensions of the steel plates. 

Our new packaging line, which features automated weighing and sheet labelling, also boasts a sheet-to-sheet stacking accuracy of 2mm. All of these features combine to create a more efficient, higher performing decoiling and packaging line.

The result of this combined power and intelligence is a product that can be provided to our customers more quickly and with greater levels of quality, accuracy and sustainability than ever before.