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The past two years have been a real whirlwind of activity for ArcelorMittal Sheffield. During this time they have installed a fixed knot machine, upgraded their high tensile barbed wire machines, secured a new warehouse, moved into new offices, implemented a new IT system, and most recently installed staple machines.
Producing the EstateWIRE range of fencing products is only half of the story at the Sheffield site as they also produce steel fibres for concrete reinforcement where their production has also seen significant changes. “We have de-commissioned and replaced an old steel fibre production line as well as installing a fourth line to increase our capacity by 25%” explained CEO, Tony Hinchliffe. “Our business is split between fencing and fibres and during the last two years, both areas of our business have benefitted from some significant changes and upgrades”.
The addition of the new site has added 4500sqm of much needed extra undercover space. “We run an extremely efficient site from a relatively small space and people are always amazed how much product we handle both inwards and outwards on the footprint we have. The new site is giving us more space and scope to be able to improve our efficiency even further and gives us options to be able to move some production processes around in order to create the optimum flow” Tony explained. “In addition to this, it also gives us room to grow our production capacity further and look at ways in which we can increase automation on some of our labour intensive processes”.
The first big change to happen in fencing production was the installation of the new fixed knot fencing machine. This machine is capable of producing two types of fixed knot fencing – the x-knot and the fixed lock. “Whilst x-knot is becoming more and more popular in the UK” Tony commented, “fixed lock is a popular choice in Scandinavian markets where we have a strong customer base for our 2Life and Dragon fencing products so it made sense to be able to add fixed lock manufacturing capability into our offering also for this customer base”.
Next came the upgrade of the high tensile barbed wire machines where old and tiring machines have been upgraded and replaced. “High tensile barbed wire production has always been a bottleneck for us with demand higher than production capacity. We have replaced existing machines and have also installed one extra line with a further one planned for the coming months giving us a much needed increase in capacity”.
The most recent change is the installation of staple machines. For the past 20 years, staples have been manufactured at ArcelorMittal Sheffield’s parent mill Bissen in Luxembourg but the decision was taken last year to re-locate staple machines to Sheffield. “Back in the early days of Estate Wire, we manufactured our own staples but as the business grew and we needed more space for other production on site, the decision was taken to remove staple production and purchase them in house from our Bissen mill. Now we’ve significantly increased our site footprint and have more manufacturing space available to us, it made sense to bring staple production back home so to speak” commented Tony.
With the economy and market conditions challenging, we asked Tony what ArcelorMittal Sheffield’s plans are for 2023. “It’s clear that 2023 is going to be tough, certainly in this first 6 months as we battle with inflation and the knock on effects of this to businesses and individuals. As a business though we are very robust as we have two major sectors we serve – the agricultural sector for fencing, and the construction sector for steel fibres. Our steel fibre business is currently heavily involved in major infrastructure projects providing us with a comfortable cushion against a slower agricultural market. So, in these times where others may be cautious about these challenges we face, we are fortunate to be able to push on with our growth plans so we’re ready for the market returning to more normal activity levels and demand – which it will! We have two installations planned to complete in Q1 (high tensile barbed wire machine and automatic large coiler), and we have further investments in the pipeline we are working on with Group for the back end of this year. In addition to this, we’ve got lots of work to do to optimise the increased working space we now have and ensure we are utilising our space to increase efficiency. It’s going to be another busy year with lots of change and improvements that’s for sure!” Tony concluded.
