Staying nimble

Building and maintaining relationships is as important as growth by capital investments and acquisitions

BY corinna petry

The company automated the packaging line associated with the slitter because the existing equipment created a bottleneck. The complete packaging line features a fully automatic banding and stretch wrapping system.

apham-Hickey Steel Corp. began creating its brand over 93 years ago in Chicago, and its reputation has grown alongside its 10 branches—four of which became part of the company less than two years ago.

Will Hickey, chief commercial officer for the fourth-generation, family owned service center chain, says continuing to offer excellent service to customers plays a paramount role in Lapham-Hickey’s strategic decisions. He cites a series of capital expenditures over the past three years.

“In 2017, we commissioned a 40,000-square-foot addition to our Bedford Park facility to install a new Red Bud slitting line. Our existing slitting time was constricted, and we needed more capacity to provide customers with shorter lead times.”

The new 60-inch-wide line accepts 30-ton coils and can process material from 0.008 inch to 0.25 inch thick.

The company—which processes and sells slit coil, sheet, plate, bars, tubing and fabricated products—also automated the packaging line associated with the slitter because the existing equipment created a bottleneck. The complete packaging line, also from Red Bud, features a fully automatic banding and stretch wrapping system. “After the product comes off the slitter and we recoil the material, it goes down a conveyor belt, and the new system bands it and packages it in a more cost-effective manner, with fewer man hours,” he explains.

In addition to the packaging efficiencies, there is a dual-mandrel recoiler to reduce transition time from coil to coil, and this slitter is equipped with guarding, which provides the operators a high degree of safety.

we build partnerships with our customers as cost effectively as possible.

Moving closer

Another strategic decision was made in April 2018 when Lapham-Hickey purchased Thompson Dayton Steel. Founded in 1922 as Thompson Wire Co. by George Thompson in Boston, the company first produced wire products, then, over many years, expanded its products and processing capabilities.

With branches in Dayton and Paulding, Ohio; Rome, Georgia; and Fountain Inn, South Carolina, Thompson Dayton’s product line includes niche products, such as tempered spring steel and low- and high-carbon strip steel, but it primarily supplies hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated products to the automotive and industrial markets.

According to Hickey, “Thompson Dayton was a big acquisition because it gave us three different things: One, the ability to heat treat the coil product in line; two, it expanded our geographic footprint to the Southeast; and three, we now have high-volume oscillate coil processing equipment.”

Thompson Dayton offers slitting, cutting to length, blanking, hardening and tempering, polishing, edging, and oscillate winding.

“The team at Thompson Dayton is fantastic,” says Hickey, and the acquisition “has helped us provide more competitive logistical solutions for our existing customers and a platform to build new partnerships.”

High wattage

The third major investment was the installation of multiple lasers. “We installed four 10,000-watt lasers from Bystronic. We put two in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and two in Little Canada, Minnesota. We placed automated loading systems on the front end of those laser cutting lines. The systems are able to hold up to 1 million pounds of product and load the lasers without human intervention.”

These machines provide faster throughput rates in light-gauge to medium-gauge carbon steel (up to 0.75 inch thick), stainless and aluminum (up to 0.625 inch thick).

“On carbon steels, we cut pretty much anywhere from 16 gauge up to 1 inch thick,” says Hickey, noting that the machines “increased our throughput compared to the CO2 lasers we previously had. The laser-cut products go to manufacturers of agricultural equipment, construction equipment, some military components and parts for energy equipment.”

The team at Lapham-Hickey is consistently striving to add value for customers, whether it means speeding up production, delivering next day or being more competitive. “Strategically, we continue to work hard on executing our vision—which is to build partnerships with our customers as cost effectively as possible.”