The Development And Strategy Research For Cold Rolling Steel Products Of Zhujang Iron & Steel Co.Ltd

Zhugang is the first steel plant in China where the new process and technology of thin slab continuous casting and continuous rolling have been introduced. Zhugang is also the only one integrated compact mill in China consisting of electric furnace CSP caster hot rolling tandem mill for producing hot rolled strip featuring new process, high degree of automation and modern management. At present Zhugang enjoy the title of a symbolic enterprise and a garden type clean plant of City Guangzhou.The thin slab continuous casting and continuous rolling technology that was adopted by Zhugang is an important technological revolution after the development of oxygen converter and continuous casting in the world iron and steel making industry field. In comparison to the conventional hot strip and sheet rolling technology the new technology has advantages such as saving investment cost, increasing finish product yield, decreasing production cost and shorting production cycle in large scale. Hence this technology has being adopted very fast far and wide in the world and up to now more than 50 strands of thin slab casting machines have been put into operation or are in construction. It will have a further bright future.The first stage of Zhugang construction project was put into operation in August 1999. The liquid steel production in 2002 was 846 000 tons with an output of 803 500 tons of hot rolled strip coils that means the designed production level for the first construction stage has been exceeded all-around. The second stage of the construction project (hot processing system) shall be completely finished in June 2003. Then the annual comprehensive production capacity in Zhugang will reach 1 800 0001 of the hot rolled strip coils.Although Zhugang can get rather more share in the drastic market competitionthanks to the development of new varieties of hot rolled products and its advantages in the geographic field and relationship to the customers the market risk will become rather big if these 1.8 million tons of hot rolled coils should be completely sold as finished products. Being confronted with the question: how to deal with and transform these 1.8 million tons of hot rolled coils Zhugang must decide the only correct choice i.e. to study the development of cold rolling project.The author has investigated in detail the development trends, analyzed the market demand for cold rolled products in the country and Guangdong province, made in consideration with the actual production development conditions in Zhugang the market orientation proposal of cold rolled products of Zhugang and determined the strategic goals as follows:1. To optimize the complete product structure in combination with the actual conditions in Zhugang so as to realize the "3 x 1/3 product system" , i.e. the finish products are composed of 1/3 hot rolled coils, 1/3 hot rolled and post processed products and 1/3 cold rolled and post processed products .2. To set the Guangdong market as the main orientation and produce various cold rolled varieties in order to fill the market blanks in Guangdong province.For the strategic goals as mentioned above the author proposed a development strategy of 6 points i.e.:1. Exploit the specialty of Zhugang's hot rolling tandem mill fully to produce marketable hot rolled coils with high added value;2. Develop ultra thin product varieties to "replace cold rolled products by hot rolled one" and create new market for these hot rolled coils;3. Construct a cold rolling project featuring "larger capacity pickling than the cold rolling";4. Zhuagang shall observe the principle to enlarge manifold varieties in the cold rolling production in order to fill the blanks in the steel products varieties on Guangdong market.5. Implement the roller type development mode " Make the general planningone time only and construct the project in stages";6. Increase the material flow management level of the enterprise and implement the integrated material flow management of the e...