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Trend Publishing Metals Group
Cleaner cycle
Tech startup creates B2B steel supply platform
Robot wars lead engineer to build well-equipped job shop
february 2022
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february 2022
trend publishing metals group Volume 78Number 02
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serving metal service centers, fabricators and OEM/end users since 1945
metallurgy r&d
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serving metal service centers, fabricators and OEM/end users since 1945
Steel is poised to be at the heart of a cleaner environmental future
Features
tube & pipe
Oilfield players are taking advantage of the current market
Wild ride
Wild ride
tube & pipe
Oilfield players are taking advantage of the current market
Gaining Ground
ERP/software solutions
Tools for estimators help generate sales, reduce costs
Brains + beauty
waterjet
Robot war inspires an engineer to open a successful job shop
Steel’s digital future
spotlight
Startup is creating the B2B supply chain technology for the industry
Ready for anything
material handling
Free-standing, modular cranes put material handling capabilities into almost any structure
MODERNMETALS.COM typography
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Features
The Eyes of the Land and the Sea is cast in bronze and takes the form of seven ribs, resembling both the hull of the HMB Endeavour and whale bones
By moving a process in house, fabricator relieves a supply crunch and achieves its quality and delivery aims
As supply chain hurdles clear and the market finds a new normal, the sky is the limit
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New alloy coating builds an inner shield to stop steel rusting
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New alloy coating builds an inner shield to stop steel rusting
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From steel to metallic glass, all the 3D printable metals available today
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From steel to metallic glass, all the 3D printable metals available today
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Central Steel
Metal
Metal Sheets
Circular Steel
The Metal Service Centers
Premier Metals Service Centers in Your Area
Click on the service center below for more information
MIDWEST
American Alloy Steel, Houston, Texas, 713/462-8081

Bar Stock Specialties, Houston, Texas, 713/849-0055

Belson Steel Center Scrap Inc., Bourbonnais, Illinois, 815/932-7416

Cambridge-Lee Industries, Reading, Pennsylvania, 800/523-8263

Central Steel & Wire Co., Chicago, Illinois, 800/621-8510

Churchill Steel Plate, Twinsburg, Ohio, 844/607-2775

Cincinnati Tool Steel Co., Rockford, Illinois, 800/435-0717

Cleveland Metal Exchange, Twinsburg, Ohio, 216/464-4480

Consolidated Metal Service Inc., Willoughby, Ohio, 800/535-4561

Crossroads Steel Supply LLC, Valparaiso, Indiana, 219/476-8595

Eastern Metal Supply, St. Charles, Missouri, 888/822-6061

ESP Specialty Steel Products, West Chicago, Illinois 888/377-4317

Falcon Steel Inc., Springfield, Missouri, 800/999-0987

Great Central Steel Co., Bridgeview, Illinois, 708/599-8090

Infra-Metals Co., Langhorne, Pennsylvania, 800/899-3432

Metalmen, Long Island City, New York, 800/642-1990

O’Brien Steel Service Co., Peoria, Illinois, 800/322-4450

Owen Industries, Carter Lake, Iowa, 800/831-9252

Paragon Steel, Butler, Indiana, 800/411-5677

Penn Stainless Products, Quakertown, Pennsylvania, 800/222-6144

Promet Steel, Frankfort, Illinois, 773/996-0317

Rapid Metals, West Bloomfield, Michigan, 248/855-9100

RHS Stainless, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 610/997-7604

SB Specialty Metals, Chicago, Illinois, 800/365-1116

Specialty Rolled Metals, Carol Stream, Illinois, 630/871-5765

Steel Manufacturing & Warehouse Co., Kansas City, Missouri, 816/842-9143

Steel Warehouse, South Bend, Indiana, 855/370-9049

Taylor Coil Processing, Lordstown, Ohio, 800/889-8601

The Steel Supply Co., Rolling Meadows, Illinois, 800/323-7571

United Metals, Cumberland, Rhode Island, 401/335-5300

Universal Steel Co., Cleveland, Ohio, 800/669-2645

Westfield Steel, Westfield, Indiana, 800/622-4984

Willbanks Metals, Fort Worth, Texas, 800/772-2352

MOUNTAIN/WEST
Alcobra, Spokane, Washington, 509/482-4435

American Alloy Steel, Ogden, Utah, 866/328-2905

Bar Stock Specialties, Houston, Texas, 713/849-0055

Churchill Steel Plate, Twinsburg, Ohio, 844/607-2775

Cleveland Metal Exchange, Twinsburg, Ohio, 216/464-4480

Far East Metals Inc., Carson, California, 310/549-3046

Kingmaker Steel West, Santa Fe Springs, California, 562/777-6668

Mega Steel & Tube, Gardena, California, 800/540-8823

Meridian Steel Company, Inc., Los Alamitos, California, 562/594-0571

NORTHEAST
Bar Stock Specialties, Houston, Texas, 713/849-0055

Benedict-Miller, Kenilworth, New Jersey, 800/526-6372

Central Steel Supply Co., Marlborough, Massachusetts, 800/345-3232

Cleveland Metal Exchange, Twinsburg, Ohio, 216/464-4480

Cohen Steel Supply Inc., Concord, New Hampshire, 800/225-6643

Eastern Metal Supply, Newark, Delaware, 800/343-8154

ESP Specialty Steel Products, West Chicago, Illinois 888/377-4317

Infra-Metals Co., Langhorne, Pennsylvania, 800/899-3432

Penn Stainless, Quakertown, Pennsylvania, 800/222-6144

Premium Plate, Axis, Alabama, 251/602-7404

Production Metals, Monroe, Connecticut, 475/231-1090

Rapid Metals, West Bloomfield, Michigan, 248/855-9100

RHS Stainless, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 610/997-7604

SB Specialty Metals, Meadville, Pennsylvania, 800/365-1116

Steel Sales Inc., Sherburne, New York, 800/238-7833

Steel Warehouse, South Bend, Indiana, 855/370-9049

United Metals, Cumberland, Rhode Island, 401/335-5300

SOUTHEAST
Bar Stock Specialties, Houston, Texas, 713/849-0055

Churchill Steel Plate, Twinsburg, Ohio, 844/607-2775

Cincinnati Tool Steel Co., West Columbia, South Carolina, 800/845-7052

Cleveland Metal Exchange, Twinsburg, Ohio, 216/464-4480

Eastern Metal Supply, Lake Worth, Florida, 800/432-2204

Infra-Metals Co., Langhorne, Pennsylvania, 800/899-3432

Metals Inc., Mobile, Alabama, 800/817-8335

Premium Plate, Axis, Alabama, 251/602-7404

Rapid Metals, West Bloomfield, Michigan, 636/929-9000

RHS Stainless, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 610/997-7604

United Metals, Cumberland, Rhode Island, 401/335-5300

SOUTHWEST
Bar Stock Specialties, Houston, Texas, 713/849-0055

Belson Steel Center Scrap Inc., Bourbonnais, Illinois, 815/932-7416

Cleveland Metal Exchange, Twinsburg, Ohio, 216/464-4480

Delta Steel Inc., Houston, Texas, 713/635-1200

Eastern Metal Supply Inc., Houston, Texas, 800/996-6061

ESP Specialty Steel Products, Houston, Texas, 888/377-4317

Mega Steel & Tube Inc., Gardena, California, 800/540-8823

Metals 2 Go, Hewitt, Texas, 877/235-7703

Metals Inc., Houston, Texas 713/923-5524

Premium Plate, Axis, Alabama, 251/602-7404

SB Specialty Metals, Dallas, Texas, 800/365-1116

Steel Supply LP, Houston, Texas, 866/991-7600

United Metals, Cumberland, Rhode Island, 401/335-5300

Willbanks Metals, Fort Worth, Texas, 800/772-2352

A headshot picture of Corinna Petry smiling
From the Editor
By Corinna Petry
Shaping destinies
A

nyone who has ever invested in stocks should know that past performance is not a predictor of future performance, but what a year 2021 was for revenue and profits in the metals sector.

Steel Dynamics Inc. reported over $18 billion in annual sales, or 91.7 percent above its 2020 revenues. A large part of that was driven by price appreciation (up 64.2 percent year over year) but shipments also rose 4.6 percent

Alcoa Inc. posted annual revenues that were 30.9 percent higher than the cash it took in during 2020. That occurred in spite of smelter closures and a 3 percent reduction in output. Alcoa returned to the black after 2020 losses in net income.

Face time
Justin Leopold in a suit, seated in an armless chair

Clear Business Case

Boutique consultancy backs procurement and raw material advice with extensive market knowledge
Question letter Q

What is Applied Value and what is its history?

Justin Leopold: AV Consulting was founded roughly 25 years ago by our chairman, Bruce Grant, as a half-internal and half-external consultancy within the Stenbeck Group (now called the Kinnevik group). That is a conglomerate of companies in Scandanavia, owned by Jan Stenbeck, who was one of Sweden’s top entrepreneurs during the 20th century.
guest editorial
Handling One-Offs
a worker operates a Sunrise machine inside a factory
Managing multiple processing functions for service centers and fabricators
By Ben Flamholz, Trilogy Machinery Inc.
T

here are many massive steel service centers throughout the United States utilizing countless angle and plate processing lines to supply a wide range of industries with steel and metal fabricated products. These lines work tirelessly day in and day out, processing long lengths of material, moving metal plates, clips and more out the door. But what about the smaller odds-and-ends jobs, where a service center only needs a few plates punched, bent or sheared?

HOT SHEET
Big River Steel Mill
expansion
U.S. Steel to build new mill in Arkansas
U.S. Steel Corp. will build a sustainable, technologically advanced steel mill in Osceola, Arkansas, near its existing Big River Steel plant. The melt shop will consist of two electric arc furnaces (EAFs) with 3 million tons per year of liquid steelmaking capability, an endless casting and rolling line, and finishing capabilities. This first use of endless casting and rolling technology in the United States brings significant energy, efficiency and capability enhancements to the company’s operations, the Pittsburgh-based company stated.
metallurgy R&D
Core Strengths
Landscape
Steel is poised to be at the heart of a cleaner environmental future
By Corinna Petry
T

he coming decade will be decisive for decarbonizing the economy,” according to a recent report from McKinsey & Co. “Metals and mining companies have been presented with a special challenge of their own: supplying the critical inputs needed to drive [this] massive technological transition.”

McKinsey cited nine critical technology applications that industries, utilities and governments will employ to reduce carbon emissions through millions of individual actions. The consultancy’s researchers claim steel will play a role in all nine: Geothermal, hydrogen, nuclear, bioenergy, electricity networks, concentrated solar, solar photovoltaic, wind power and electric vehicles. The role of carbon and stainless steels will be found primarily in the infrastructure of these technologies.

Tube & Pipe
Oil and gas companies currently are operating from cash on-hand, boosting drilling.
Oil and gas companies currently are operating from cash on-hand, boosting drilling
Oil and gas companies currently are operating from cash on-hand, boosting drilling.
Wild ride
Oilfield players are taking advantage of the current market
By Lauren Duensing
A

lthough the recovery for the oil and gas industry has been a bit muted, oil posted its biggest annual advance since 2009 at the end of 2021, according to a Bloomberg report, as more economies began to move toward pre-pandemic numbers, spurring global consumption. West Texas Intermediate crude oil pricing rose 55 percent for the biggest year-to-date gain in more than a decade and Brent crude oil pricing rose 50 percent, the largest gain since 2016.

ERP/Software Solution
SecturaFAB allows users to move the goalpost to days of productivity gains for the sales team.
SecturaFAB allows users to move the goalpost to days of productivity gains for the sales team
SecturaFAB allows users to move the goalpost to days of productivity gains for the sales team.
Gaining ground
Tools for estimators help generate sales, reduce costs
C

ustomers, and by extension sales, are the lifeblood of an organization. Estimating and quoting without converting quotes to sales equals lost revenues. However, estimating is a necessary, but imperfect, step to revenue generation. Many organizations focus primarily on operations and forget that the reason they exist is due to sales. The most important function of sales within an organization is timely, accurate and competitive bids. Many organizations use an assortment of cumbersome and outdated resources such as Excel templates, programming software and tribal knowledge to build estimates. This is all changing with a platform called SecturaFAB by SecturaSoft.

WATERJET
battlebot on fire
man working on battlebot engineering
Arthur sponsors team Whiplash on the “BattleBots” television program. His waterjet cut several of the team’s robotic parts from AR500 steel and grade 6061 aluminum.
Brains + Beauty
Robot war inspires an engineer to open a successful job shop
By Ann Thompson, Hypertherm Inc.
R

obotic combat, a competition in which custom-built machines fight each other, has gained popularity in the last 30 years. The sport has become so popular that competitions are found nearly everywhere from high school gyms to regional, national and global venues. It even inspired a couple of reality TV shows, like “Robot Wars” and “BattleBots,” that document the drama and thrills of these good-natured skirmishes.

One of the sport’s earliest fans is Simon Arthur, the founder of Big Blue Saw, a 6,000-square-foot job shop in his hometown of Atlanta. A software engineer as well as science fiction fan, Arthur was introduced to the “sport” when he attended Dragon Con, an annual science fiction convention. The headliner guest speaker one year was Marc Thorpe, a California-based toy designer credited with inventing the game.

SPOTLIGHT
Steel
A service center can list prime or excess stock for sale and invite existing buyers to make offers through the platform and then aggregate that information.
Steel’s digital future
Startup is creating the B2B supply chain technology for the industry
By Corinna Petry
W

hile long-term, trusting relationships will always be crucial to buyers and sellers, there are often some missed opportunities to know all you can about the data-filled world that surrounds each transaction. Two men—one with a decade of experience in the service center business, the other who started up technology companies on both coasts—have formed Felux Co.

Felux is a B2B marketplace and supply chain platform for the metals industry that is helping companies digitize their organizations and give their customers a digital way to buy and sell steel.

MATERIAL HANDLING
Nomad cranes lifting
Nomad cranes can be customized to maximize lifting height and fit seamlessly into the operation.
Ready for anything
Free-standing, modular cranes put material handling capabilities into almost any structure
By Lauren Duensing
I

ndustrial real estate tenants can be very diverse. Tech companies, distribution companies and equipment rental businesses all have specific—and different—needs for the same space. Many of these companies also are looking for more flexibility as they navigate what Deloitte’s 2022 Manufacturing Industry Outlook characterizes as “positive economic indicators paired with historic labor and supply chain challenges.”

Deloitte analysts indicate in the report that “business agility can be critical for organizations seeking not only to operate through the turbulence from an unusually quick economic rebound but also to compete in the next growth period.”

New Products
four pre-engineered Ascent presses on display
HYDRAULIC PRESSES
Pre-engineered machines are configurable
Pre-engineered Ascent presses can reduce cost and lead time by up to 50 percent compared to custom presses without sacrificing quality or performance. With models ranging from 30 to 500 tons and 21 different frame sizes, the Ascent line can suit manufacturers and jobs shops of every size. Every Ascent press features a unitized gib-guided frame, which provides superior guidance and rigidity. Speed, stroke, daylight and shut height are fully configurable to each customer’s exact needs, while options for heated platens, HPU configurations, and safety equipment add to the line’s flexibility.

Beckwood Press Co., St. Louis, 800/737-0111, beckwoodpress.com.

PARTING SHOT
Alif
The Mobility Pavilion
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Alif – The Mobility Pavilion is one of Expo 2020 Dubai’s three pavilions based on the themes of mobility, sustainability and opportunity. The Mobility Pavilion—named Alif after the first letter of the Arabic alphabet and symbolizing the beginning of progress and new horizons—occupies a dedicated plaza at the south entrance to the site. Its ribbed and curved shape was designed to evoke movement. Its stainless steel cladding was inspired by chrome fenders and aircraft wings. It reflects movement from the surrounding area, making the building seem alive. The visible lines of the building’s layers hint at how we are all connected, even when physically far apart. An amphitheater and a second stage, as well as a piazza surrounding the building, hosted performances, events, symposiums and demonstrations.
Photo: 2020 Expo 2020 Dubai LLC –SO
Alif – The Mobility Pavilion is one of Expo 2020 Dubai’s three pavilions based on the themes of mobility, sustainability and opportunity. The Mobility Pavilion—named Alif after the first letter of the Arabic alphabet and symbolizing the beginning of progress and new horizons—occupies a dedicated plaza at the south entrance to the site. Its ribbed and curved shape was designed to evoke movement. Its stainless steel cladding was inspired by chrome fenders and aircraft wings. It reflects movement from the surrounding area, making the building seem alive. The visible lines of the building’s layers hint at how we are all connected, even when physically far apart. An amphitheater and a second stage, as well as a piazza surrounding the building, hosted performances, events, symposiums and demonstrations.
Photo: 2020 Expo 2020 Dubai LLC –SO
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Cinnabons
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Our team is here, there and everywhere ready to help when you need it. Let us bring your business the ultimate flexibility and competitive edge so you can deliver the most consistent product to your customers!

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ModernMetals
President/Publisher Michael D’Alexander
Editorial
Editor-in-Chief
Corinna Petry
Senior Editor
Lynn Stanley
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J. Neiland Pennington
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Lauren Duensing
Contributing Editor
Alan Richter
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Modern Metals® (ISSN 0026-8127, USPS 357-640) FEBRUARY 2022, Vol. 78, No. 2 is a registered trademark of Trend Publishing Inc. Modern Metals® is published 11 times a year by Trend Publishing Inc., with its publishing office lo­cated at 123 W. Madison St., Suite 950, Chicago, Illinois 60602, 312/654-2300; fax 312/654-2323. Michael J. D’Alexander, President, Trend Publishing Inc. Copyright 2020 by Trend Publishing Inc. All rights reserved under the United States, International, and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means—mechanical, photocopying, electronic recording or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Trend Publishing Inc. This publication is sent free of charge to qualified subscribers. Single copies $14. Paid subscriptions in the U.S. $125/year. Canada, $145/year. Foreign subscriptions, $180/year surface mail and $260/year air mail. If interested in a free subscription go to www.modernmetals.com to see if you qualify. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Omeda – Modern Metals – 4 Overlook Pt., Ste. A25E, Lincolnshire, IL 60069. Printed in the USA.
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