Scana Steel Björneborg

Administrerende direktør: Ingvar Winbo
 

Kristinehamnsvägen 2
SE-680 71 Björneborg
Sweden

Scana Steel Björneborg refines steel in an integrated chain that includes steelworks, heat treatment, forge with a 4,500 tonne press and a well-equipped machining workshop.

The company was founded 354 years ago, making it one of the group’s most venerable companies – not
to mention one of the oldest forges in the world.

Due to low demand and high pressure on prices, following a financial recession and an economic
down-turn in the heavy steel industry, the company’s order reserve and turnover has decreased. But with a number of cost cutting measures, the result is still positive.

Markets and customers
 

Scana Steel Björneborg exports 70 % of its turnover, directly or through other companies in the group. The largest market is Europe, but export also goes to the USA, Asia and other parts of the world.

The entire steel industry has throughout 2010 been faced with a low demand and increased competition due to a much larger capacity in both Europe and Asia. As a consequence, the organization and crew of the company has been adjusted accordingly and marketing has been intensified. Scana Steel Björneborg has, adhering to our long-term strategy, continued our work on increasing the refinement of our products. The result for 2010 is an increasing number of customers ordering a higher number of finished products, especially in the marine business area.

In 2011, a slight increase in market demand is expected. The business as a whole will experience an increasing forge capacity in the world. Scana Steel Björneborg will continue to focus on established customer relations, cooperation with other Scana companies and also on new markets.

Investments for the future

In the course of the recent three years, large, productivity-increasing investments have been carried out, and the majority were concluded during the summer of 2009. Investments for increased production capacity, more advanced testing equipment and a better environment, has continued in 2010 as well. The most important completed investments in the course of 2010 were:

• Upgrades of lathes for the machining workshop
• Continued development of the steelworks, part 2, through purchase of a new transformer. Installation of the arc oven transformer is due during summer 2011, and for ovens some time during summer 2012. These investments will increase capacity to 115,000 tonnes annually.
• Upgraded equipment for heat stability testing, completed and run-in. With this test equipment, axles can be tested at high temperatures, meeting the particularly high demands of energy customers.
• New CTOD test equipment for the testing of steel, especially for customers in oil and gas. Having this machine in-house shortens the lead-time for e.g. risers with several weeks.
• New pendulum impact tester increasing safety and capacity.
• New cooler intake and new dam hatches minimize the risk of flooding and cooler liquid breakdowns.
• Equipment to ensure that no radioactive materials are led onto the property.

Investments have been carried out according to schedule, resulting in more reliable production equipment with a higher total capacity, plus more advanced test facilities. The company is well prepared for an increased demand for forged steel products weighing up to 45 tonnes and a length of 24 metres.

Increased productivity and quality

In the course of the year, Scana Steel Björneborg has introduced “Lean Production” in all production divisions, partly under our own auspices and partly within the framework of a programme by Chalmers tekniske høyskole, called “The Production Lift”. Our goal has been to attain a high and even quality through controlof every process. This also contributes to a higher delivery precision.

The costs for quality divergences are now less, as a direct result of the aforementioned work, and combined with the programme for cost reduction, this has contributed to increased competitive power. The programme continues through 2011, and several of the company’s workers are involved and contribute to the improvements. This is a continuation of the earlier work where we systematically shorten the lead-time for all products. The company has introduced bottleneck control, setting a maximum limit for the number of products at work in critical processes.

We want to ensure that the company’s workers are highly skilled, which in turn leads to improved quality. The company identifies critical skills using a competence matrix, in addition to certification of specific skills through practical and written tests. A recently introduced salary system for employees is an incentive to further develop one’s skills and competence.

All in all, the aforementioned measures entail that our
work in progress have decreased drastically, our delivery precision has increased, the throughput times are shortened and the divergences are more than halved.

Products

Scana Steel Björneborg delivers customer designed products for four market segments: industrial, marine, machine and energy. The company’s main products are forged, rotation symmetrical, large and long components of steel with a high technical content. Scana Steel Björneborg also supplies raw forged and semi-finished billets. The products are for instance axles, shafts, joints, risers, poles and sheet metal.

The company’s products are often key components for the customer, and are delivered with different degrees of completion, depending on customer requirements. The company has an on-going cooperation with material institutes to further increase the quality of our products.