Olympic Steel – Cleveland, OH: John Arms

The journal that holds the work roll in position was warped at the Cleveland, OH division. This caused the housing to break while running material on the cut-to-length line. This issue should have shut the line down for 26 weeks – the time it takes to receive a new set of work rolls and journals, …

The journal that holds the work roll in position was warped at the Cleveland, OH division. This caused the housing to break while running material on the cut-to-length line. 

This issue should have shut the line down for 26 weeks – the time it takes to receive a new set of work rolls and journals, but thanks to John Arms, Maintenance Manager, the line was down for only 12 business days.

He worked with a local fabricator to reverse engineer the work rolls and journals (a short-term fix) to get the line running again while waiting for the replacement parts.

Lesson Learned: When a part is on backorder, it doesn’t have to be the final answer. Even if it’s unconventional, use the resources and tools you have available to safely alleviate the things that are out of your control, like backordered parts.