Konecranes is working in partnership with Bluescope Steel to optimise materials handling operations in Thailand.
Bluescope Steel (Thailand) Limited employs Konecranes programmed maintenance agreements to reduce downtime and maximise safety and efficiency at its four operations in Eastern Thailand. The agreements cover 46 cranes from 2.5-50 tonne capacity that are vital to efficient maintenance and uninterrupted production of metallic coated and pre-painted steel products for local and export markets.
Bluescope’s largest facility in South East Asia, the Ma Ta Phut plant at Rayong, is included in the agreements. The Ma Ta Phut plant incorporates a cold rolling mill and pickle line of 400,000 tons annual capacity, 2 metallic coating facilities with a capacity of 375,000 tons and a paint line capable of handling 90,000 tons of product sold throughout Asia and as far afield as Europe.
The Ma Ta Phut plant has features a custom-engineered, semi gantry, 30-tonne capacity Konecrane, especially designed to service a space-efficient hot roll coil storage yard and remove any vehicular safety risk by eliminating truck or forklift movement within it.
The 270 x 32m yard holds 2182 coils of steel, equating to approximately 50,000 tons of steel. The 30-tonne capacity travelling Konecrane spans the width of the yard and of the specially designed truck loading and unloading lane that runs parallel to it, eliminating the need for trucks to enter the yard.
The 30-tonne capacity Konecrane is designed with safety in mind and offers precise control of coil positioning. To ensure that manufacturing operations meet stringent Australian, Japanese and other international standards, the Konecranes programmed maintenance team is responsible for servicing cranes of all functions and sizes.
In 2007 all the Konecranes at the Ma Ta Phut plant reached 10 years of service, and by law (Thai & Australian), all cranes that reach this age must be re-certified. The re-certification was carried out by an independent Thai crane inspection company and the process was audited by an independent crane expert from Australia. All cranes passed the re-certification with only very minor problems, which would normally be picked up on the next bi-monthly preventative maintenance inspection.
The Konecranes team maintains two technicians on-site at all times, which helps to further reduce downtime.