The Maintenance Guild is a non profit corporation formed to bring together Maintenance personnel working specifically in the steel mill melting and rolling operations around the world. It is designed to give us a forum to openly share views and ideas on improving our respective maintenance organizations and operations within the Melt Shop and Rolling Mill.
This web site will be the main communication point to convey information on meetings, new ideas, and answers to questions or solutions to problems that you maybe experiencing in your shop. If you are involved in the maintenance operations in a melt shop or rolling mill please feel free to fill out a membership form, there is no cost to be a member. This way we can get information to you as needed on meetings and seminars as they are scheduled. If you want to become a voting member we now have a $25.00 annual fee which can be paid for on our web site.
The Maintenance Guild will hold their Twenty Fifth meeting on October 7, 8, 9, and 10, 2008.
The twenty fifth meeting will be held in Hamilton, Ontario Canada with our host Plant being ArcelorMittal - Dofasco. We will have our Golf Outing on Tuesday with an evening hospitality mixer, a tour of Panabrasive and Tubemac on Wednesday, and a tour of Dofasco Thursday finishing. The Technical presentations will be Wednesday and Thursday mornings and will be focused on Co-jet technologies. After the presentations we will then take a plant tours finishing the day with our evening dinner. Our round tables discussions will be all day Friday. Transportation for the Plant tours will be provided for the group. We will be staying at The Crowne Plaza in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. The closest airport is in Hamilton (YHM) with a 20 min drive, the Toronto international airport (YYZ) which is a 45 min drive and Buffalo (BUF) which is over an hour and a half away. The room rate for the Guild members will be 149.00 dollars per night. To make your reservations, individuals should call 888-528-3451 or 905-528-3451 make sure you tell them it’s for the Maintenance Guild Conference to get the group discount. You need to make the meeting fee payments in advance. The cost for this meeting will be $450.00 (American) and can be made on our website www.maintguild.com or you can fax me a PO number at (330) 479-5061 and I will invoice you for the fees as long as we receive the funds prior to the meeting. This fee will cover the cost of meals, bus transportation, meeting rooms, and equipment. The cut off date for the block of room we have on hold is September 1, 2008. After this date the rooms will go on a first come first served basis. There are few hotels close to this location so please make your travel arrangements as soon as possible. Thursday evening we will have a dinner with a guest speaker from ArcelorMittal Dofasco. For those individuals that are interested there will be a group gathering Tuesday for a round of golf. If you are interested in playing please contact Mark Kropf at -email- or call him at (330) 479-5060. I need to know by no later than September 1, 2008 if you plan on golfing so tee times can be secured. We plan to Tee off by 9:00 and finish at 3:00. We will return in time for you to attend the afternoon hospitality which will be open from 7:00pm till 11:00pm for the members to come relax and catch up on news with other Guild members. There will be wives outings on Wednesday & Thursday with tours of the Niagara Region. There will be a fee involved for the tour transportation and I will communicate the final cost once I know how many are interested. So if any of the wives are interested please let Mark Kropf now as soon as possible so adequate transportation and pricing can be obtained.
More details will be posted soon
Posted by Mark G Kropf on Monday 04 August 2008 - 16:01:16
The Maintenance Guild Fall meeting to be held on October 7 - 10, 2008
The 25th Meeting of the Maintenance Guild Will be held on October 7 thru the 10 in Hamilton, Ontario, with two days of technical papers focused on Co-Jet Technologies. There will be tours of the Pan Abrasive Facility, the TubeMac Facility and of ArcelorMittals Dofasco Facility. We will be Staying at the Crown Plaza in downtown Hamilton with reservation information coming out soon. So mark it down on your calendars and plan to attend. You'll not want to miss this conference.
Posted by Mark G Kropf on Monday 09 June 2008 - 13:36:46
Meeting minutes of the April 16th – 18th meeting in Florence, South Carolina
The members of the guild arrived on Wednesday April 16th for the Golf outing at Traces Golf Club followed by a tour of the Superior Machine Company. That evening we all joined for hospitality at the Hilton Garden Inn. On April 17th Mick Brown opened the meeting with the introduction of the officers and general business. He then opened the floor for nominations for the second vice-president position. He moved on with the introduction of our new members and then began the technical presentations. The first presentation was by John Nain from Nain & Associates LLC presented a paper On “OSHA Standards and compliance”. This presentation will be available on the website under the Technical papers section. The next presenter was Frank D Fereday from Gore Industries presented a paper on “Bag house bag failure”. This presentation will be available on the website under the Technical papers section. The next presenter was Jim Rushing from Eutectic is presented a paper on “Welded Protective coatings”. This presentation will be available on the website under the Technical papers section. Our last paper was presented by Scott Howard from HYPRO presented a paper on “Evolution of a Filter Change out – Effects on System Contamination Levels”. This presentation will be available on the website under the Technical papers section. After the technical papers were complete, the group broke for lunch and at 1:00 left the hotel for there tour of the Nucor Darlington Steel facility. After returning from our tour we joined in the conference room at 6:00 for a social hour provided by Nucor Steel. Dinner was served at 7:00 and we were able to listen to W. Andrews (Andy) Munson Jr. Maintenance Manager - NUCOR Steel talk about his plant and its position in the steel industry. Friday morning we gave out the Golf outing door prizes and then had a short Business meeting to determine the location of the next meeting. A few locations were considered, Chaparral Virginia, CMC Birmingham, and Nucor Jewett. The members in attendance discussed going to Nucor Jewett in April 2009 and Birmingham in September 2009. The Fall Technical meeting in Hamilton, Ontario will cover Coherent jet Technology and will be a 4 day meeting with possible tours of Dofasco, Panabrasive, Ford motor plant and Tube Mac. Next Mick Brown had everybody introduce themselves and the company they work for. The members in attendance continued the voting process for the position of 2nd Vice President; Nominees were Bob Fabian of Timken and Daniel Rocha of TAMCO. After the floor was closed for nominations ballots were handed out and voting took place with Bob Fabian elected by popular vote as the Second Vice-President.
The round table session began with questions from the floor at 8:30. Mick had everyone go around and state their main issues and concerns in their shops then moved to detailed questions and discussions.
A long discussion was held on the new OSHA arc blast Standards and what each shop is doing to come into compliance.
Maintenance Cost what is world class and how is it measured? This topic has been discussed at several meetings and a lot of the mills are starting to watch the detail cost and monitor what is a maintenance cost and what is an operational cost. If it touches the product it is part of production. Understanding what the cost and were the cost is being generated is the biggest challenge.
Who is running apprentice programs and how are you finding maintenance people? All the shops are having problems finding good people. Some are using the local tech schools, working with local governments for job placement and some are training within.
Union rep on safety called OSHA and they came in to do a walk thru, during their visit the found little minor issues and the fines levied was huge. So it is important to pay attention to the small items. How do other shops encourage their people to watch for the small items?
What types of slag retention are the spray-cooled roof users using? Cups were the most widely used. Roof life was discussed and moved to arc damage to the inner rings at the deltas. Grounding, Evacuation and energy inputs all have an effect on this phenomenon. Shop shops stated they stopped using slag retention on the tube panels to avoid the induced stress.
What is the proper interpretation of proper placement of disconnect switch for overhead cranes in regards to OSHA? This topic was discussed and different ideas were brought up. They also recommended them to go to the OSHA web site and look up the detailed requirements.
A general discussion was held on the maintenance systems integration and how to transfer information from and old maintenance system and migrating it to a new Maximo system
Slag pot floor cover and moving system was discussed.
An accident involving two overhead cranes was discussed and the best ways to avoid collision and accidents from happening. Different anti collision systems were discussed and procedures were compared.
Magnets on the crane have to have proper grounding and bonding as code and wanted to know if anyone has any experience with grounded DC magnet connections. No one has ever heard of this code.
What people are using for positioning of mast column. Supplier offered to measure hydraulic oil flow in and out of cylinder and determines cylinder positioning. What happens when you have a leak? Cable displacement seems to be most common. Few shops are looking at laser, issue could be dirt.
Carbon rates through injectors send information to Timken.
Rolling mill, who is using CPM rolls, CMC use them with success. Main issue is ensuring you have good water flow for cooling, prevent cracking.
How are people storing parts, off or on site? Keeping hoses on furnace deck to save time for maintenance people, people doing both just have to understand how to keep track of inventory.
Laser use to measure billet length, is anyone using it?
Slag off into a pot and sometimes it has to swing from the crane into a stop to pop out the slag. Does anyone have any information on ceramic coatings to minimize the sticking? Most of the shop only has stickers when steel is run into the pot.
Turret Gear box designs with low clearance anyone have problems with the output shaft size?
Is anyone preheating scrap to minimize the snow and water during winter operations? Only the Consteel Shops were. A discussion on charging practice was held with different opinions on the proper procedure.
Electrode lead protection ideas was discussed with the different types of fire protection and bumper designs.
Spray-cooled hood design on the Consteel segments have been working well and the nose pan life running around 2 weeks.
A general discussion was held on the best way to promote the Maintenance Guild and expand the membership, Along with different ideas on meeting structure and promoting the organization with in our company’s.
Posted by Mark G Kropf on Monday 28 April 2008 - 13:42:19
Meeting fee: $350.00 if not already paid, will need to be collected to cover meals and meeting incidentals. Questions: Call Mark Kropf (330) 479-5060, Mick Brown (909) 899-0660 ext. 5248 Dress: Business Casual attire
Wednesday, April. 16, 2008
9:00 – 2:00 GOLF OUTING AT TRACES GOLF CLUB. (MAPS AT HOTEL FRONT DESK)
3:00 – 5:00 TOUR OF SUPERIOR MACHINE COMPANY (BUS WILL LEAVE FROM THE HOTEL)
7:00 – 11:00 HOSPITALITY SUITE WITH HOURSDORVES PROVIDED BY SUPPLIER GROUP (At Hotel)
Thursday, April. 17, 2008
7:00 – 7:45 BREAKFAST BUFFET
7:45 – 8:00 MEETING ROOM: SIGN IN WITH YOUR BUISNESS CARD
8:00 – 8:10 INTRODUCTION: MICK BROWN FLOOR OPENS FOR NOMINATIONS FOR VICE PRESIDENT
8:10 - 9:10 PRESENTATION: JOHN NAIN FROM JOHN NAIN ASSOCIATES, LLC. IS PRESENTING A PAPER ON “OSHA STANDARDS AND COMPLIANCE”
9:10 QUESTIONS
9:20 BREAK
9:25 - 10:10 PRESENTATION: FRANK D FEREDAY FROM GORE INDUSTRIES IS PRESENTING A PAPER ON “BAG HOUSE BAG FAILURE”
10:10 QUESTIONS
10:20 BREAK
10:25 – 11-10 PRESENTATION: JIM RUSHING FROM EUTECTIC IS PRESENTING A PAPER ON “PROTECTIVE COATINGS”
11:10 QUESTIONS
11:20 - 12:10 PRESENTATION: SCOTT HOWARD FROM HYPRO IS PRESENTING A PAPER ON “EVOLUTION OF A FILTER CHANGE OUT – EFFECTS ON SYSTEM CONTAMINATION LEVELS” 12:10 QUESTIONS
12:30 LUNCHEON BUFFET
1:30 – 4:30 BOARD BUSSES OUTSIDE HOTEL PROMPTLY FOR THE TOUR OF THE NUCOR STEEL PLANT
5:00 RETURN TO THE HOTEL
6:00 -7:00 GATHER IN THE HOTEL BAR FOR HOSPITALITY
7:00 - 8:30 DINNER - BALLROOM GUEST SPEAKER: W. ANDREWS (ANDY) MUNSON Jr. MAINTENANCE MANAGER - NUCOR STEEL
8:30 - 9:30 HOSPITALITY SUITE WITH BEVERAGES
Friday April, 18, 2008
7:00 BREAKFAST BUFFET
8:00 - 8:30 GENERAL BUISNESS, ELECTION OF VICE-PRESIDENT & NEXT MEETING DISCUSSION
8:30 - 9:30 ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS
9:30 - 10:00 BREAK
10:00 - 12:00 ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS
12:00 - 1:00 LUNCH BUFFET
1:15 - 2:45 ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS
2:45 - 3:15 BREAK
3:15 - 5:00 ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS
Posted by Mark G Kropf on Tuesday 01 April 2008 - 15:40:40