Joseph Savariego, president, Delta Steel Technologies, discusses the continued advancement of coil processing equipment—from flatness to automation

August 2021 - Q: Why does demand for coil processing equipment continue to grow?

A: The requirements for flatness have changed. In the past, a flattener or a roller leveler was good enough to accomplish the job. However, the amount of lines that have advanced flatness equipment have increased, and customers have gotten accustomed to the quality of the material that these lines produce. That’s starting to drive the conventional line service centers to look at advanced flatness.

Q: What are some options for companies looking to achieve advanced flatness?

A: There are two different types of technologies: temper mill cut-to-length lines and stretch levelers. Delta Steel Technologies is the only manufacturer in the world that has successfully manufactured both lines beginning to end.

Q: How does that experience help your customers?

A: We sit down with them and begin a conversation to help us understand their needs and goals, such as production expectations, budget and space constraints. Then, we can offer them the best technology for their operation. Delta Steel Technologies manufacturers roller levelers, flatteners, temper mills and stretch levelers. We provide one source of responsibility for a complete project. If customers purchase equipment from multiple manufacturers, they take on some level of responsibility for making everything sing and dance. And with Delta, it’s a one-stop shop. We work with customers to come up with a conceptual design, layout for the equipment, as well as the installation and training supervision. We don’t walk in and say, “hey, this is what you need—and by the way, it’s the only equipment we build.”

Q: Do automatic features help with training?

A: Absolutely. We have a variety of customers with a wide range of employees. Sometimes, they have a young operator who has never seen this type of equipment, and other times, we’re working with a more seasoned operator who is used to a different type of equipment. Both have challenges. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and it’s tough to teach inexperienced people how to operate a piece of equipment. So, the level of automation that we use and the automatic settings that the lines generate facilitate that process.

In all cases, irrespective of the technology, there’s always a little bit of operator intervention. For example, if the operator realizes that certain material runs a better way with different settings, he can always save that in the system and have it to refer back to in the future.

Q: What are some other ways coil line automation provides benefits?

A: There are alarms if the line is under any kind of stress or impairment and screens that pop up to indicate the problem, as well as offer some potential solutions. We’re also tracking productivity of the line and overall equipment efficiency to help management make decisions based on data that’s coming directly from the line. If the line stops for any amount of time, there are several options presented to the operator, including unplanned quality, planned quality and planned maintenance. For example, if an operator stops the line to take a measurement because that’s what their standard operating procedure indicates, that time is captured under planned quality. If they discover a blemish or some other indication that they need somebody to sign off on, that’s filed under unplanned quality.

If the operator walks away for any reason and doesn’t select one of the categories, that gets cataloged under operator inefficiency. There should always be a good reason to stop. Otherwise, the line should be running.