Custom Solutions for a Rolling Steel Mill

Project overview

Customer:

A rolling steel mill in southern Indiana

Manufacturer partnership:

Apollo Valves®

Challenge:

When an actuator in a vital area of operation broke down, a rolling steel mill faced serious downtime if they didn’t get a timely customized solution.

Solution:

We tapped into our nationwide partnerships to cut lead time and hand-delivered the customized product to get our customer back up and running fast.

Background and project scope

When you partner with Ferguson, you benefit from all our partnerships.

We maintain close, long-standing relationships with our customers so we know their industrial MRO needs as well as they do. And we cultivate strong partnerships with approved manufacturers to be able to fulfill those needs quickly and with products our customers can trust.

A rolling steel mill in southern Indiana got into a jam when an actuator suffering from corrosive wear and tear broke down. The break affected a critical line in a vital area of their operation, so downtime meant a serious slowdown.

We’d collaborated with this customer for two decades, so our associate knew exactly which actuator and mounting bracket they would need when the call came in.

The mounting bracket required a customized solution for a 20" butterfly valve, and we were able to manufacture the specialized product through a third-party partnership with Apollo Valves.

Our associate also identified an opportunity to improve performance by implementing a larger actuator. Facing a two-week lead time on the new actuator from the manufacturer, our associate tapped into our extensive partnership network to find one locally that could ship much faster.

When the order was fulfilled, our approved manufacturer partner couldn’t guarantee a delivery window, so our associate drove two hours to the truck line terminal to pick it up and hand-deliver it to the customer.

The solution: Ferguson Industrial

Even with the need for custom manufacturing, we leveraged our partnerships to get the steel mill back to full strength less than two weeks after the initial break.

To see how our expertise, connections and willingness to go the extra mile can keep your operations running smoothly, visit ferguson.com/industrial.