they could be improved by better preparation. Eventually, they reduced the major change time to 1.5 hours. Other goals of the lean team have


been to perform failure analysis, opti- mize the number of people required to perform the internal and external tasks and make operators more consistent. “The fl exible workforce is a corner-


stone of the whole process,” Pereira said. “When you have these dividing lines between jobs, you can’t serve the customer faster. Everything builds up in a pile.” The lean team has more to do before


it is fi nished making the Marvel City Mini Mill more fl exible. The plant has been ramped up to twice its original production, with plans to take it further due to the consolidation of other facili- ties. To do so, the lean team will be involved in projects to allow the facility to run the equipment harder without increased downtime and operate both of its casting lines simultaneously. “We originally designed [the facility]


to run one machine at a time with a dividing wall between the two to allow for concurrent maintenance activities, but we can run them both if needed,” Boyd said.


Mini Stepping Back to Prosperity U.S. Pipe has consolidated capac-


ity—more capacity than it anticipated when it fi rst conceived of the Marvel


City Mini Mill. In addition to the Bur- lington plant the mill was intended to replace, the company recently closed its fl agship North Birmingham, Ala., pipe casting shop due to excess capac- ity caused by the economic downturn. But the company’s executives aren’t


wary of talking about the hard times; after all, it’s been an industry-wide epidemic. Nearly all of the company’s major competitors also have consoli- dated capacity. And most of the execs see reasons


to be optimistic about the future. The anticipated rebound in residential construction should start to grow the company back to its previous levels of production, and the greater aware- ness of the need to replace aging water infrastructure has resulted in some additional funding, according to Pensec. They also say that when and if that bounceback happens, the Marvel City Mini Mill will play a sig- nifi cant role in meeting the demands of U.S. Pipe’s customers. “As the volume increases, we have


the ability to add capacity to the Mini Mill and grow it,” Torok said. According to Torok, that might mean


making further changes to the layout of the plant, adding another pipe machine and tapping into the effi ciency of the annealing oven to handle a 50% in- crease in pipe production. But he hopes it won’t require further consolidation.


For a U.S. Pipe audiocast, visit www.moderncasting.com.


“We have a nice plant, and [our company has] a neat structure,” he said. “We have a plant in California that handles the business on the west coast, the Mini Mill handles small diameter pipe, and the remaining Bes- semer plant does large diameter pipe. There is very little product overlap between the three facilities. I don’t see the footprint changing.” That doesn’t mean the company sees


no challenges in its future. Currently, the ductile iron pipe market has escaped much of the pressure other segments of the metal manufacturing markets have felt from low cost countries. That could change, but Torok expects the Marvel City Mini Mill to help U.S. Pipe hold off the competition. “I believe the culture of the Mini Mill,


as its success becomes more evident, will spread to the rest of U.S. Pipe,” he said. “The Mini Mill is the future of pipe. It is the low cost supplier of product in this market, and we are ready to take on all competitors.”


MC


After exiting the heat treat furnace, pipe produced at the facility moves down a long conveyor to cool and go through inspection.


MODERN CASTING / July 2010


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