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March 30, 2007 marks a milestone both for Outokumpu in the UK and the UK stainless steel users: the Group’s sales company in the country, Outokumpu Stainless Distribution, opens a new service centre for plate and tubular products on its site in Sheffield next to its coil service operations, relocating a previous plate operation from Blackburn and expanding the product range, services and capacity. The consolidation of all UK stock and processing in one location also means increased efficiency and enhanced quality from Outokumpu to its customer base both in the UK and in Ireland. |
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The Sheffield coil service centre
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Stuart Maxwell, Managing Director of Ancon Building Products, comments, “This investment immediately leads to improvements.” He says it will enable Ancon, the UK’s leading supplier of stainless steel construction fixings, to improve its competitiveness in supplying the European construction industry.
New capabilities in Sheffield include water-jet, plasma and laser cutting, cold plate sawing, and new tubular products warehousing. These are housed in over 5,000 square metres of new floor space, which increases total floor space to 18,000 square metres.
The investment, worth £2 million – approximately 3 million euro – follows recent enhancements in the coil service operations at the centre, including new coil polishing and traverse winding capabilities. These enhancements add to the centre’s existing cut-to-length, slitting, sheet polishing, shearing and blanking facilities.
The investment follows a current trend among stainless steel users to outsource more and more of their coil and plate processing operations. Going further downstream and adding more value added processes, Outokumpu is integrating into its customers’ first processes and thus aligning more firmly with their production. Important customer segments for the Sheffield plate and tubular operations are the energy, water, oil and gas sectors, while the coil operations serve the hospitals and catering as well as construction sectors in particular.
The Sheffield investment is in line with Outokumpu’s strategy to focus on customer needs. In the UK, the service centre provides an important face to the customer, as three-quarters of stainless steel reaches the customer through the stock and processing route. Outokumpu’s UK sales company deals with the vast majority of stainless steel users in the British Isles.
“Outokumpu is already the leading supplier of stainless steel in the UK, and the new investment will further strengthen our position in this market,” says Mark Perrins, Managing Director of Outokumpu Stainless Distribution. |