Page 24 - TTMA 75th Annual Convention Bulletin

Steel of West Virginia

Steel of West Virginia, Inc. has invested over $72 million in capital improvement projects since their
last TTMA Associates presentation several years ago. These improvements are in every area of their
manufacturing operations, from the melt shop, through rolling, fabricating, and coating, all of which
increase the capacity available for truck trailer crossmembers and the quality of those crossmembers.

Highlights of the melt shop improvements, totaling $13.9 million, include a major furnace upgrade, new
robotic temperature and oxygen probes, a new magnetic slide gate system to control the flow of hot
metal, new caster oscillators and a new caster straightener. In the rolling mill, upgrades totaling $26.3
million include a new laser profile measuring gauge, a bar weighing system, new rolling mill housings, a
descaling system, rolling lathes, a new dual stacker system, a yield optimizer shear, and a new state-of-
the art rolling mill control system. The new profile gauge should be of particular interest to trailer
manufacturers because it gives the operators continuous feedback on 12 different product dimensions,
which improves the accuracy and reduces the variation in these dimensions.

New fabricating equipment, totaling $16 million, includes new band saws at SWVA, Inc. in Huntington,
WV and at Marshall Steel, Inc. in Memphis, TN. These new band saws increase capacity and ensure the
capability of cutting precision lengths. The latest generation of robot welders for welding end clips to
beams have been purchased and installed at both SWVA, Inc. and Marshall Steel. This brings the total
number of robot weld lines at SWVA to four and gives Marshall a new robot welder in addition to their
eleven manual weld stations. These new robot weld lines have improved material handling and
improved clip placement control. The wax line at SWVA, the largest in North America, is being refitted
with a new material handling system that will increase capacity for waxed products and minimize
handling damage.

The most recent large capital project is a new $16 million galvanizing plant that is actually being built
and will be run by an affiliated company, Steel Ventures, Inc. This plant is a state-of-the-art green field
facility with all the latest safety and environmental features, and is located in Wurtland, KY, 30 miles
west of Steel of West Virginia’s Huntington, WV facility. At the time of this TTMA conference, the
construction of this new galvanizing plant is nearing completion and galvanized product should be
available to be shipped early in the third quarter of 2017. The plant has a tank that is 43’ long x 12’
wide x 6’ deep and will therefore be able to coat a wide variety of products including truck trailer
crossmembers, I-beams, posts, complex fabricated assemblies, and other miscellaneous parts. Having
this dedicated facility will improve lead times and minimize transportation costs for truck trailer
manufacturers.

The presentation will be a 3 minute, 45 second video tour of Steel of West Virginia, highlighting the
new equipment, in the format of a movie trailer titled “Steelfinger.” We think this goes along with the
th
theme of the 75 anniversary of the TTMA, “Diamond Jubilee - Trailers are Forever.” We’ve taken
some liberties and used Diamonds are Forever/James Bond/GoldSteelfinger/ License to Mill as the
backdrop for our presentation.