SMS TECHNICAL SERVICES OPENS NEW WORKSHOP IN THE U.S.A.

New workshop operated by SMS Technical Services in Osceola, in the southern U.S. state of Arkansas.

In Osceola, in the southern U.S. state of Arkansas, SMS Technical Services has opened a new service and maintenance workshop less than two miles away from the steel plant of Big River Steel (BRS). SMS Technical Services will take care of all service and maintenance activities for the CSP®, for example, on the molds and segments of the casting plant and the rolling mill components (annual production: 1.6 million tons). On top of that, SMS Technical Services will be in charge of the two on-site roll shops servicing the hot and cold rolling mills.

As full service provider, SMS Technical Services will be responsible for the investments related to the construction of the roll shops, for the roll shop personnel and for the operation. Contracts like this are becoming increasingly popular among steelmakers in North America. SMS Technical Services will also provide the roll grinding machines and auxiliary facilities for the roll shops.

Once the BRS steel complex is in operation, about 50 people will be working in the Osceola service workshop and in the two roll shops. The teams will be staffed with employees recruited locally in the north-eastern part of Arkansas and with SMS Technical Services employees currently working at other service locations in the U.S.A. SMS group has been consistently pursuing the concept of establishing local service branches all over the world. This helps steel mill operators needing to have components of their plants serviced or repaired save on shipping costs. The new workshop in Osceola offers operators of high-speed continuous casters in North America a full line of services, including repairs, overhauls, maintenance as well as reconditioning of casting molds.

The Osceola workshop offers a service range similar to that available at SMS group’s Oil City workshop in Pennsylvania. However, in Osceola, SMS Technical Services will be able to offer even more services as the new workshop has a high-capacity CNC horizontal milling center designed for additional machining and turning processes and various shot blasting and paint-spraying cabins. Being a full service workshop with state-of-the-art electroplating facilities, the Osceola workshop will also offer reconditioning services for copper molds. Additionally, local field service will be provided, for example, for onsite laser scanning or alignment activities. Besides BRS, other steel mills in the region, such as SDI Columbus, Nucor Decatur, Nucor Hickman, Nucor Tuscaloosa, Nucor Yamato and Nucor Memphis, all of which are longstanding customers of SMS Technical Services, will benefit from this service.

Thus the Osceola site of SMS Technical Services is another important milestone in the growing network of SMS group service locations in North America.