Above: With 25-ton lifting capacity, the Magswitch system has a 3:1 safety factor that is ASME compliant.
September, 2025- American Heavy Plates (AHP), a hybrid of rolling mill, processor and service center, began plotting an expansion of its product offering to specialized thinner and longer plate, based on customer demands. The company normally carried stock 3 inches and thicker. Its leaders also recognized that delivering plates as long as 500 inches could bring efficiencies to the bottom line.
“Our current electric magnet material handling equipment was not equipped to safely handle that product range,” recalls Jeff Thompson, executive vice president of operations. With this realization, in early 2024 AHP launched a search for the right material handling supplier and equipment. The outcome was the installation of two fixed beam high-heat magnetic lifting systems from Magswitch. The system, configured to AHP’s needs, was installed last November.
PUSHING PARAMETERS
Founded in 2018, Clarington, Ohio-based AHP combines rolling and service center capabilities to deliver custom heavy plate on a just-in-time basis. The business is on the site of the former Ormet Corp. aluminum rolling mill that ceased operations in 2013. Under AHP’s ownership, the facility received an extensive overhaul. “Other than the mill housing, everything needed to be replaced. It was a two-year process, but it was worth the investment,” says Thompson, who is a member of the original AHP management team.
When the new mill started rolling in 2020, capacity was limited to 3- to 22-inch-thick plate. “Over the last several years, we heavily invested in new equipment to improve our processing process and increase our capabilities. These upgrades are allowing us to expand our volume and product mix,” notes Thompson.
With the new Magswitch lift systems, AHP will make custom plates as thin as 2 inches and as long as 500 inches—a significant increase from AHP’s previous limit of 300 inches.
“The thinner 2-inch gauge plate has a propensity to peel off the magnetic lifts we use for the thicker plate. The Magswitch [lift] resolves this issue with a spreader beam and rare earth magnets at each end of the beam,” says Thompson.
FAILSAFE DESIGN
In evaluating suppliers for a material handling system, AHP was attracted to one of Magswitch’s key safety features: it does not rely upon continuous electricity to stay magnetized. Electricity is only necessary to engage and disengage the magnet. The 25-ton lifting capacity of the Magswitch system has a 3:1 safety factor that is ASME compliant. To achieve this safety feature, the Magswitch system uses an advanced electro-permanent magnet (EPM) technology. This failsafe design means the lift maintains its magnetic hold during a power failure.
“From a safety standpoint, if we lost power or the system inadvertently got unplugged, the plate will not drop due to this loss of power. Five hundred inches is a long plate suspended in the air without constant hold. The failsafe technology on the Magswitch system was a major driver for us,” explains Thompson.
NOT TOO HOT TO HANDLE
Another attractive feature of the Magswitch high-heat magnetic lifting system is its robustness. The system is high-temperature rated to perform in environments up to 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius).
As a rolling mill, AHP heats steel up to 2,350 degrees. Hot plates coming off the mill are not yet magnetic until they cool to about 1,000 degrees. “Once plates cool to about 1,000, we can start moving them with the Magswitch system,” explains Thompson.
On the service center side of operations, temperatures during annealing, normalizing, stress relieving and quench and tempering can reach 1,750 degrees.
Here, too, the legacy lifting systems at the facility are not rated to handle plate that’s over 1,000 degrees. The ability to move plate earlier in the cooling process gives AHP an operational and strategic leg up. “A big benefit with the Magswitch system is in the safety and handling of hot material. The quicker we can move hot plate, the more productive we become,” adds Thompson.
LEAD TIMES
Moving plate sooner allows AHP to deliver on its promise to customers, shorter lead times. “When we built American Heavy Plates, we envisioned stocking semi-finished steel with the ability to roll it on demand. This gives our customers a unique perspective on how to manage their inventories and projects,” explains Thompson. “The quicker we can keep materials moving through our plant, the quicker we can service our customers. The Magswitch lifters allow us to handle materials faster and safer than the traditional equipment,” he says. AHP supports a myriad of industries from small fabricators to service centers and from OEMs making pressure vessels to builders of infrastructure projects like bridges and transmission towers. Regardless of industry, thompson believes that achieving a shorter lead time gives AHP a competitive advantage.
A key feature of the Magswitch system is its failsafe technology, enhancing employees safety at American Heavy Plate.
“During my 30 years working at metal service centers, I learned that if you didn’t have the material on the ground, the order would go to a competitor who did,” says Thompson.
The AHP business model was built for speed. “We can, within days, process plates and/or parts to exactly what a customer wants and when they need it, instead of making them predict months in advance what they might need. No one in the industry is focused on this kind of speed,” he claims.
He cites a large chemical plant that lost one of its main treatment units right before Memorial Day. Thompson says this end customer was in a panic, as it was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a day with the unit offine. “Their fabricator called around the country to find someone that had a large supply of pressure vessel quality materials readily available,” reports Thompson. The fabricator was being quoted up to four weeks lead time.
“Then the fabricator contacted AHP. From the materials we had on hand, we were able to start supplying parts within 24 hours. We then rolled an additional six plates through the mill, heat treated them and processed the parts within the next four days,” Thompson recalls.
The Magswitch magnetic lifts enable American Heavy Plates to handle material up to 500 inches in length. This plate is 432 inches long.
YIELD GAIN
In addition to moving plate more efficiently, the Magswitch system helps AHP achieve higher yields. “Now that we can effectively material handle plate as long as 500 inches, we are able to roll to that length—instead of two shorter plates at 300 inches—and avoid the wasted heads and tails from a second roll,” Thompson explains, emphasizing that material is the highest-cost line item for a steel mill. “So better yields have a direct impact on profits and our bottom line.”
The fixed beam high-heat magnetic lifting system from Magswitch picks up one plate at a time with a consistent, repeatable magnetic force. The system also comes with a heavy duty wireless remote and customizable power levels for various material weights and dimensions.
With the safety, lead time and yield gains that the high-heat magnetic system offers AHP, there may be more of these systems at the company’s facility in the future. “We see a long-term view in working with Magswitch, to eventually move more of our material handling equipment over to a Magswitch style environment,” says Thompson.
American Heavy Plates, 740/331-4500, http://www.ahplates.com/
Magswitch, 303/468-0662, http://www.magswitch.com/
