Outokumpu is a world leader in the area of stainless steel and high-quality alloys. The Finnish company has production locations around the world. One of these locations is in Terneuzen. This is where the steel rolls, which can weigh more than 30,000 kg, are processed into strips or plates. In order to be able to process the rolls, the company from Zeeuw has 4 high-tech production lines that process the rolls of steel with very high speed and precision into plates and strips of the correct dimensions.

The challenge
The control system (Siemens S5) of one of these lines was outdated, no longer fulfilled the Machinery Directive, and therefore had to be replaced. Because shutting down production costs money, a very short conversion period of just 5 weeks was arranged for the machine upgrade.

Result
The client called it “a model for all other projects”! Batenburg JB Systems successfully migrated the machine within the set conversion period and the subsequent start-up period. The machine complied with the Machinery Directive again and downtimes were reduced thanks to fewer faults.