Sector Focus:Manufacturing
Local manufacturer celebrates milestone
of being in business. These two decades that have seen enormous growth for the company and its development from a hand-rolling mill to one of Sheffield’s leading metals manufacturers. Pro-Roll Ltd started life back in
I
2000 as a small-quantity specialist hand rolling mill, fulfilling a gap in the industry after the closure of several small rolling mills in the Sheffield area. Making its home in the historic Little Matlock Rolling Mill in Loxley, Pro-Roll set-out with the business model of providing a bespoke service, dedicated to quality in the processing of specialised alloys for a variety of industries. Since the company’s
establishment in 2000, Pro-Roll Ltd’s levels of expertise in the rolling of "difficult" materials has continually developed, along with a host of more common grades of Steel, Alloys and Metals. Its main emphasis was as a hireworker; producing bars rolled to size or section shape from customer-supplied material, but as its reputation grew, it began to offer a complete supply package, from starting billet to finished bar, as and when customers required. In August 2012, Pro-Roll opened
up a brand-new bar finishing division on Claywheels Lane in Hillsborough, to bring “in-house” a lot of the processes that had previously been subcontracted
n the final few days of December, Pro-Roll Ltd celebrated its 20th anniversary
externally. Fully equipped with a state-of-the-art pulse-fired heat treatment furnace, centreless grinding machines, bar straightening resources and bandsaws, as well as ultrasonic and hardness testing capabilities, the Claywheels Lane facility allowed Pro-Roll to further its expertise in the handling and processing of specialist alloys. The most-recent expansion has
‘Pro-Roll has never lost its focus on
quality and customer service’
seen it move to Pluto Works, off Penistone Road in Hillsborough. Pro-Roll acquired the site at the end of 2016, combining together for the first time, all of its rolling and bar finishing activities onto one site. This new expansion allowed it to further its capabilities and processes, most notably giving it the ability to melt its own product, and putting Pro-Roll in a position where it can provide customers with a full-supply service from ingot through to heat- treated, machined bar. In all of its
history, Pro-Roll has never lost its
focus on quality and customer service. In 2018, it added two new
ingot annealing furnaces to
further develop the melt capabilities. These facilities, paired with two existing six-tonne induction melting furnaces, which are retro-fitted with Argon shielding during the entire melt process, and a high-tech vacuum degassing station, argon purging, allow the firm to provide a quality product for applications such as: aerospace, nuclear, defence and engineering. Pro-Roll also make a point of
melting from prime materials, allowing It to control exactly what goes in to each material, and can produce bespoke melt chemistries to tight chemistry control. Albeit Pro-Roll is a raw materials
manufacturer, and ultimately there are further processes that take place with many of the materials it produces that turn them into their final forms; it is aware that material it has processed has made its way into aircraft parts (engine blades,
fasteners, and landing gear assemblies), biomedical implants (spinal fixtures, immobilisation structures and hip joints), petrochemical applications (seismic controls, sensors, valves and pumps), as well as motorsport and architectural purposes. Some notable applications of materials it has processed are: wrought Iron material for railings outside Buckingham Palace, chair struts inside the ISS, and historic Spitfire landing gear assemblies. It is also a first-tier supplier to the Rolls-Royce Nuclear Submarines programme, a position which the firm takes great pride in. Pro-Roll’s dedication to quality
product and service continues to this day with important quality accreditations being added such as; NadCap approval for heat treatment, AS9100 & ISO 9001, Rolls-Royce Aerospace & Submarines approvals, as well as a host of other OEM prime approvals for various industries. Carrying on this legacy, Pro-Roll
Pro-Roll employs state-of-the-art equipment
continues to develop and grow, proud to be a key name in Sheffield’s history of steel manufacturers.
Winter 2021 CHAMBERconnect 73
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