Wide rolling concept begins output
Submitted by:
Sara Waddington
Header image: New Rolling Mill Building, BILSTEIN Plant I (Copyright BILSTEIN GROUP)
The BILSTEIN GROUP is readying itself for the future of cold rolled steel, with the construction of its new wide quarto reversing cold rolling mill at BILSTEIN in Hagen-Hohenlimburg, Germany, nearing completion. Work on the plant is proceeding according to plan, and in the coming weeks the group will start commissioning one of its most technologically advanced facilities worldwide.
Drawing on the group’s experience with wide rolling at its U.S. facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the new production site will complete an international global network.
“Cold rolled steel will now be available in widths that greatly exceed the current global standard of 650mm, offering unrivalled potential to improve processes, while strategic investments in quality control technology will ensure that our standards are met with each customer order,” BILSTEIN told ISMR.
Marc T. Oehler, CEO and partner of the BILSTEIN GROUP, commented: “With the completion of one of the most modern reverse rolling mills at its core and with the commissioning of a new advanced slitting line, the Hagen-Hohenlimburg facility will provide a massive technological boost for the entire BILSTEIN GROUP across all production processes - including internal logistics and annealing, which have been highly automated, thanks to investments made in recent years.”
“Advanced technology has been a focal point of this project - one of the most important in the group's history - and the latest plant systems, enabling a very high degree of automation, open up considerable opportunities for our customers, especially in f digitisation. Going forward, a large amount of additional data will be available for the entire production process via technology such as advanced digital rolling assistants, which can be used to drive further quality improvements and to increase economic efficiency,” added Michael Ullrich, CTO of the BILSTEIN GROUP.
The new systems are designed for processing material of up to 1,350mm for use across a wide variety of applications, in the automotive sector and for the processing industry. This will enable further process optimisation in production. See www.bilstein-gruppe.de