May 2002

Kenwal Pickling LLC
New Player in Pickling
Enjoys Strong Startup
The ability to achieve several processes in line
saves customers time and money.

BY CORINNA C. PETRY,
MANAGING EDITOR

• Quick Facts
• Equipment Vendors
  

Kenwal Steel Corp. saw an opportunity nearly two years ago to save some cash for itself and reduce costs for toll processing customers, so the company built a pickling plant next to its Dearborn, Mich., service center.

Production from the 125,000-square-foot plant—tagged at $22 million complete—began last August. As of early April, Kenwal Pickling LLC was producing about 75 tons per hour of hot-rolled pickled and oiled coils. The line’s capacity can reach 100 tons per hour, or more than 600,000 tons per year, respectively. The plant is already operating three shifts five days a week, Vice President Mike Droski says.

Voest Alpine Industries Inc., Canonsburg, Pa., built the line and Kenwal Pickling’s employees installed it. It takes four people to operate the line each shift. The company has 40 employees.

“We’re still working some bugs out. There is a lot of automation on the line; debugging the automation and making it work properly was a difficulty. Training the employees and coaching them took time. Achieving our quality program [QS 9000] at the same time was difficult,” Droski says.

“Training was probably the biggest issue. We had OSHA-required training, crane [operator] training, and automation and maintenance training. We have chemicals on site, so we needed to do a considerable amount of [safe handling] training there. We’re very proud of the crews we put together out there,” he adds. “We have an outstanding workforce.”

The plant includes indoor storage for up to 50,000 tons of hot-band coils. “A lot of pickling companies store outside, but we found we get better quality if the material is inside,” Droski says. “We’re not picking up the mud and debris you typically get on coils stored outside. When you put that through your processor rolls on the entry end, you can create roll marks on the strip. We don’t have to worry about that.”

One of the new company’s competitive advantages is the removal of some freight costs. “When Ken-wal Steel used another toll processor for pickling, we had freight from the mill to that processor, and from the processor into our plant. So we have eliminated a local freight, maybe 25 cents a hundredweight,” Droski says.

Pickling for Kenwal Steel will probably equal 50 percent of Ken-wal Pickling’s business, he estimates. Steel producers and other service center companies make up the remaining customer base. Kenwal Pickling ships to customers within a 300-mile radius. “As a toll processor, the closer you are to the service center or the mill, that’s where the market is.”

Walking the line
Coils of hot-band are delivered by truck or rail. Kenwal has an on-site rail line. The work begins in the coil staging area. Material moves from the staging area to an off-line prep station, where employees prepare the outer wraps, crop coil leads, gauge material to customer requirements, and remove any damaged sections.

From the prep station, a coil moves to the entry end of the pickling line, which has 70,000-pound capacity double mandrel uncoilers. The strip is unwound and progresses first through a flattener section, then through a tension leveler.

From there, the strip moves into a four-bath heated and turbulent push-pull pickle system. Hydrochloric acid is used to remove scale in concentrations from 1 percent in the first bath up to about 12 percent in the final bath.

After pickling, the strip enters five separate rinsing tanks to remove the acid. Once cleaned, the strip is dried, gauged by X-ray, rolled through an electrostatic oiler that applies oil to both the top and bottom of the strip, or dry lubricated. From there, the strip is rewound on a recoiler, reweighed, packaged and warehoused for outbound shipment.

“Our top line speed is 400 feet a minute, but our typical line speed is based on the ability to clean the strip,” Droski says. “Some material is more difficult to pickle and would require slower line speeds.”

Finished goods inventories typically fluctuate from 10,000 to 20,000 tons. Customers can request further processing on Kenwal Steel’s three slitters next door.

“Our software system allows us to process material very quickly. We could receive material based on an Advanced Shipping Notice, get it into the pickle line schedule, get it onto a slitter schedule, and pre-order a truck to pick the finished material up,” Droski says.

“Customers are looking for stain-free material and we’re doing an effective job delivering that.” The company’s reject rate during the first quarter of 2002 was less than one-tenth of 1 percent, he says. “They want service. They want to be able to make a call and have us turn it around quickly for them. We have grown our customer base every month and we expect that to continue through the balance of the year.”

Kenwal Pickling’s other competitive advantages include having the most up-to-date equipment, higher capacity than typical service centers, plus the ability to tension level, edge trim and dry lube all in line.

“I’ve been involved in other pickling operations in other companies, and this one is the finest in North America. That’s no exaggeration,” Droski asserts. “This month, we installed a dry lube coater. We will do a better job with this unit than any other line out there, by applying a consistent coating across the width.”

Dry lube is a soap-borax mixture that replaces oil as a lubricant. “If you need to remove oil for painting, you typically have to use an alkaline cleaner and then you have an oily cleaning solution to dispose. With dry lube, all you need is hot water, because you’re cleaning off soap. It’s nontoxic; you can put it down the drain.

“You can weld through it,” he continues. “If you need to weld material, you would have to remove the oil, so [with dry lube] you remove a handling step for the end user or the stamper and welder. It’s a better value for them.”

The dry lube system was designed by Kenwal Pickling, with some assistance from an engineering firm. The unit had its first large-scale trial in April.

Kenwal Pickling anticipates seeing a profit in its first year of operation, Droski says.

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