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Aggressive
Expansion for EMJ
Earle M. Jorgensen Co., the Lynwood, Calif.-based chain
of metal centers, has moved rapidly forward with expansion plans
in three corners of the country: Texas, Washington and Connecticut.
EMJ
opened a new machining center Sept. 1 in Houston, near an existing
warehouse. This plant is the first EMJ facility that offers trepanning
of steel bar, employing four newly refurbished machines. The plant
provides full service and support to EMJ customers throughout North
America.
“Providing
machining services such as these will be of particular benefit to
our customers in the oil tool industry, but is part of our strategy
to offer more value-added processing and services to all our customers,”
says Kenneth Henry, executive vice president and district manager.
“As part of a long-term strategy to provide higher processing
and service levels, this is a facility that could grow to meet additional
customer demand. The industries we service are seeking ever more
cost-effective solutions in their lean manufacturing environments,”
he notes.
EMJ’s
new Spokane, Wash., facility, which opened July 1, reached full
operating status Aug. 31, with five employees. The 15,000-square-foot
facility inventories bar and tube stock and cuts products to order.
The branch is meant to expand service levels for eastern Washington,
northern Idaho and western Montana.
“Following
a significant increase in sales to the region, we wanted to increase
service levels and delivery options to our customers beyond those
available from our Seattle facility,” says Robert Cloos, district
manager. “Our customers, many of who are local screw machine
companies, machine shops and OEMs, will have the benefit of a wide
range of metals and value-added machining options.”
He
adds that the Spokane facility is directly en route between EMJ’s
main Chicago warehouse and Seattle, and there are seven to 10 delivery
runs per week between these cities.
EMJ
is also opening a new branch in Southington, Conn., on Oct. 1. The
32,000-square-foot facility is meant to expand service and delivery
levels to clients in Connecticut and northeastern New York, and
throughout the Northeast. The facility will carry bar and tube stock
and offer metal cutting services, Vice President Jim Hoffman says.
“This allows us to serve our very demanding client base as
they continually seek outsourcing solutions to run their business
more cost effectively.”
The
company still expects to open facilities in Lafayette, La., and
Quebec City, Quebec, in the near term. EMJ is also expanding existing
facilities in Kansas City, Mo., and Toronto.
At
the annual stockholders’ meeting Aug. 18, Maurice “Sandy”
Nelson Jr., president, chief executive and chief operating officer,
described the past year as a landmark for the company.
“Not
only has this been a record year for revenues and profitability,
but also a year in which we completed a major restructuring of the
finances of the business. In April, we also listed our shares on
the New York Stock Exchange,” he said.
The
positive financial trends of fiscal-year 2005 continued into fiscal
2006. In its first quarter ended June 29, EMJ reported revenues
of $444 million, up 22.8 percent from the same quarter last year,
having shipped 3.1 percent more tons. Net income increased 93 percent
to $22.6 million, compared to the first fiscal quarter last year.
Heidtman’s
New Line Offers Critical Flatness
Heidtman Steel Products Inc., Toledo, will start up a stretcher-leveling
line at its new 125,000-square-foot processing center in Butler,
Ind., by the end of September. This leveler will produce Heidtman’s
trademarked “The Flat One” flat-rolled sheets, up to a
volume of 18,000 tons per month.
The
Flat One is the result of highly automated stretcher leveling technology
developed by Red Bud Industries. This technology produces a sheet
that will hold quarter standard flatness tolerance after laser cutting.
Heidtman
says the line can take in coils up to 30 tons, at 0.375-inch thick
by 72 inches wide, and produce a stress-free sheet that can be used
in laser, turret or other flatness-critical applications.
TCI
Precision Metals Adds Water-Jet Cutting
TCI Precision Metals, Gardena, Calif., has added contract water-jet
cutting services to its metal pre-machining and full machining capabilities.
TCI’s
water-jet cutting units use a high-pressure solution of water and
abrasive to quickly machine complex shapes out of virtually any
material with tolerances to 0.005-inch on parts as large as 8 by
96 by 144 inches. Meant for both short runs and production runs,
TCI water-jet cutting features quick set-up times and minimal tooling
requirements.
Dual
cutting heads machine multiple parts simultaneously to minimize
material handling, while tight nesting and common cut lines reduce
material costs. In addition, TCI’s water-jet cutting machines
operate without heat to eliminate hard edges, warping and changes
to the metallurgical composition of the material being processed.
Along
with water-jet cutting services, TCI provides double-disc grinding,
Blanchard grinding, duplex milling and vertical/horizontal machining.
The company also distributes products for Alcoa Inc. and Kaiser
Aluminum.
Amerinox
Expands Processing Capabilities
Gulf & Northern Trading, Camden, N.J., has been consolidating
acquired assets and expanding its processing capabilities.
Gulf
& Northern, which has been importing stainless steel flat-roll
and long products for over a dozen years, has served as a master
distributor of stainless steel products for the past three years
as Amerinox Processing.
Amerinox
Processing opened a 100,000-square-foot warehouse and processing
center in Camden two years ago. It purchased the assets of Philadelphia
Stainless, a producer of sheared and edged stainless steel flat
bar, at the end of 2004 and has consolidated these assets at Camden.
This unit continues to produce flat bar.
Amerinox’s
flattening/leveling and cut-to-length lines handle mill deliveries
of both foreign and domestic product, and stocks for processing
against orders. President Seth Young says the company purchased
a Herr-Voss Stamco stainless steel leveling line from Eastern Stainless
in Baltimore and rebuilt it. The leveler processes hot-rolled stainless
sheet up to 0.50-inch thick and 72 inches wide. “We have been
running that line non-stop for about a year and a half now,”
he says.
In
addition, the company is installing an Acme coil-to-coil polishing
line that will accept incoming material from 22-gauge (0.03-inch)
to 0.25-inch thick and up to 63 inches wide.
Young
says the polishing line will focus on the heavier gauges. Polishing
heavier gauges “is very unusual in the marketplace. There are
very few people who can do it, and we don’t know of anyone
who can do quarter-inch commercially from coil. Some do it with
sheet. This will set us apart,” he says.
Trials
on the polishing line will begin in October with commercial production
to begin in November. At full production, the line should be able
to process at least 1,000 tons per shift. The company expects to
hire three employees to replace those who are moved to operate the
new line.
Toledo
Processor to Get First SCS Coil Line
PMP LLC, a joint venture between Heidtman Steel Products, Toledo,
and The Material Works, Red Bud, Ill., has contracted Red Bud Industries
to build the first SCS coil line at its Toledo facility.
SCS
is a patented process developed by TMW that takes hot-rolled black
material through a simple brushing process to remove the scale and
produce a clean surface with a cold-rolled-like finish. The steel
becomes rust resistant and highly paintable at a fraction of the
cost of pickling and oiling.
Prior
to the installation at PMP, the SCS product was available only in
sheet form or blanks. A sheet-fed system with a 0.50-inch-thick,
72-inch-wide capacity has been in operation at TMW since March 2003.
The
new coil system is designed to process hot-rolled black material
up to 0.25-inch-thick by 72 inches wide from coils weighing up to
30 tons.
Webcast
for Metal Center IT & Operations Staffs
AXIS Computer Systems Inc. will sponsor an IndustryWeek-hosted webcast
at 2 p.m. EDT Wed., Oct 5. The webcast, called “Metals Industry
in Transition: How Producers and Service Centers Can Gain the Upper
Hand,” is intended for operations and IT managers from metals
service centers, as well as metals producers.
The
program will focus on information systems and the beneficial use
of enterprise resource planning packages in the metals industry.
Speakers will include Chris Marti, vice president of research and
technology at the Metals Service Center Institute; Peter Weymouth,
product manager for AXIS Computer Systems; and Jerry Biagini, director
of technology and business processes at Gibraltar Industries’
Processed Metals Group.
Those
who wish to participate should register at www.industryweek.com/
webcasts.
Briefs
Crucible Service Centers is building a 25,000-square-foot warehouse
and office building in Chatham, Ontario, to open in December. The
flagship Chatham service center is meant to enhance Crucible’s
ability to support Canada’s tooling and manufacturing sector
for the long term. The new branch will carry CPM high-performance
tool steels, and conventional high-speed, cold work and hot work
products, according to Richard Ross, manager of Crucible Service
Centers’ Canadian Operations.
Farmer’s
Copper and Industrial Supply, a service center chain based in Galveston,
Texas, has changed its name to Farmer’s Copper Ltd.
Taylor
Steel Inc., Stoney Creek, Ontario, has purchased a Herr-Voss Stamco
Precision Strand Extensioner slitting line that will process 72-inch-wide
material from 0.010- to 0.125-inch thick from coils up to 36 tons.
The material to be run on this line includes exposed automotive
and other surface-sensitive products with yield strengths up to
80,000 psi. The line will be installed and commissioned in mid-2006.
This is the 16th Herr-Voss Stamco coil processing line that Taylor
Steel has purchased.
McNeilus
Steel Inc., Dodge Center, Minn., has started up a second stretcher-leveler
from Red Bud Industries. The company began operating its first such
line in early 2003. With the second line, installed this summer,
McNeilus expanded the thickness range of the material it processes.
RBI supplied a heavy-gauge stretcher leveler to process high-strength
material from 0.375- to 0.50-inch-thick, up to 72 inches wide, from
coils weighing up to 40 tons, at yields up to 75,000 psi.
Precoat
Metals, St. Louis, Mo., has contracted GFG to build a vertical chemical
coater, an S-Type prime coater and two finish coaters. Precoat will
install the coil coating equipment at its new plant in Hueytown,
Ala.
MC
Steel has relocated its service center from Elk Grove Village to
Wheeling, Ill., and upgraded its slitting capabilities. The company
purchased a complete Red Bud slitting line that is capable of processing
coils up to 75 inches wide from coils up to 30 tons, at thicknesses
up to 0.25-inch.
Metalco
Costa Rica, a metals exporter, has ordered an S-Type Finish Coater
from GFG, to be used in its color coating line. Metalco began operating
in Costa Rica in 1962 and is in an expansion phase. The company
established the first galvanizing and color coating lines in Central
America and is certified to the ISO 9001:2000 standard. It also
is working toward the environmental standard ISO 14001 certification.
Crucible
Service Centers lowered its surcharges for tool steel products being
shipped in September. CPM, Conv HSS, Cold Work TS, Hot Work and
Alloy steels all include new surcharges for raw material, energy
and scrap-ranging from 10 cents for alloy Maxel 3-1/2 up to $9.20
for CPM Rex 121. In August, shipments of Maxel 3-1/2 included a
12-cent surcharge and shipments of CPM Rex 121 included a $10.13
surcharge. The company tracks its costs for cobalt, vanadium, molybdenum,
nickel, chromium, tungsten and natural gas and posts the charts
on its Web site, at www.crucibleservice.com/surcharges/index.cfm.
People
Carl Salazar has been named Tampa district manager at O’Neal
Steel, Birmingham, Ala. Salazar will oversee sales, operations and
quality for the district. O’Neal appointed Greg Schroeder to
regional operations manager-Gulf Coast Region, which includes Dallas,
Houston, Mobile and Lafayette. He oversees continuous improvement,
safety, training, quality and lean manufacturing. Steve Coulter
was promoted to district manager of Dallas. He joined O’Neal
in Dallas as an inside sales representative and later moved to office
manager, sales manager, and most recently, assistant district manager.
Mitchell Harrison was promoted to district manager of both of O’Neal’s
operations in Greensboro, N.C. He joined the company in 1978, working
in operations, sales and administration over the years.
Frederick
W. Weidner has joined the sales staff of Alliance Metals Inc. at
its Philadelphia branch. He previously worked for the Pennsylvania
Turnpike Commission.
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