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Home / Washington Business - March/April 2005 / Member Profile - Clean Steel: Nucor |
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Member Profile - Clean Steel: Nucor |
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Written On: March/April 2005 |
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Written By: By Daniel Brunell |
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Seattle and steel have never really been associated together. The blue-collar world of steel production seems at odds with the latte-sipping culture of the Emerald City. Yet in South Seattle, just under the West Seattle Bridge, is this strange anomaly.
It is not like this steel mill is new. The mill has operated for nearly 100 years in the same location. Under many different names and owners, the mill has made steel that made the northwest what it is today. Bought by Nucor in 2002 from Birmingham Steel, the mill currently produces industrial bar steel, which is used for producing reinforced steel, otherwise known as rebar.
The history of Nucor is as storied as its Seattle plant. Founded as the Reo Motor Company in 1905 by Ransom E. Olds (of Oldsmobile fame), the company changed hands and names until 1955 when it eventually became the Nuclear Corporation of America. At that time, the company was involved in the manufacturing of nuclear instrumentation and electronics.
Over the next several years, the company slowly bought out other companies including a South Carolina maker of steel joist and joist girders named Vulcraft Corp. After facing several bad economic years and bankruptcy in 1965, Nuclear Corporation installed Vulcraft’s executives to lead the corporation in order to retrofit the company as a steel manufacturer.
Instead of building large, expansive steel mills like those found in Pittsburgh and the rest of the United States, the revitalized Nuclear Corporation decided to look to Europe and their electric arc furnace technology. This process made steel from scrap metal instead of raw materials. Nuclear Corporation built the first one of these “mini mills” (referring to the smaller size of the facility compared to bigger mill) in the United States in 1969 in Darlington, S.C. This plant sparked the mini-mill revolution in the United States. The concept quickly spread and the reformed Nucor (named changed in 1972 from Nuclear Corporation) quickly became a leader in the steel industry.
Today, Nucor is the nation’s largest producer of steel. Their products range from steel joists, steel decking, bar steel, flat rolled steel, steel plates, cold-finished steel, fasteners, to building components. If it is made of steel, Nucor probably produces it.
The key to the runaway success of Nucor is constant innovation, which is found in its products. Nucor pioneered the thin-slab casting process, a process that uses a special casting technique to make very thin sheets of steel without compressing it with giant rollers. Many of their competitors thought this impossible, and it revolutionized the sheet steel market. Also, Nucor has been innovative in the way it works with its workforce.
Nucor has an employee-orientated structure throughout the entire company. All employees, from the front office to janitors, have a base salary with performance-based bonuses. This way, the more productive an employee is, the more he gets paid.
“We are proud that Nucor has never laid anyone off in the company’s history,” said Doug Jellison, vice president and general manager of Nucor Steel Seattle. “We make a commitment to our employees that they will always have a job and collectively try to create an environment where we can all succeed.”
For example, during particularly good years, the company gives a special bonus to every employee. Other benefits range from scholarships for employees and their families to an innovative health care system that encourages employees to shop around for a doctor that they are comfortable with instead of having an HMO list one for them.
The Seattle mill has kept up the Nucor record for innovation, especially in the area of environmental responsibility. “We pride ourselves on that fact that we recycle almost all of our waste,” Jellison added. “We are also the largest recycler in the state, and our company is the largest recycler in the nation.”
The company has won much praise for their environmental efforts. Some of the things that the mill has done to garner so much attention include:
• A stormwater recycling program that collects all the rainwater from around the plant to use in the steel-making process. This way they draw as little water as possible from city water supply.
• Reduce energy consumption to become one of the most energy-efficient mills in the nation. A normal plant uses more than 19 million BTU’s of energy for every ton of steel shipped. The Nucor Seattle plant requires less than 4 million BTU’s of energy per ton of steel shipped. Nucor is one of Seattle City Light’s largest customers and works proactively with City Light to find further ways to reduce energy consumption and efficiency.
• Improving air quality by having the best available control technology, including some novel innovations in design, drastically improving air quality in the surrounding neighborhood.
That last point illustrates something fascinating about the Nucor Seattle facility. It is one of the last steel mills in an urban setting in the United States. Most steel mills have left the big urban areas and have retreated to rural America. One look around the Nucor facility and you see a large number of houses and businesses.
“We really make an effort to be good neighbors,” said Bart Kale, safety and environmental manager for Nucor. “Most people are surprised that there is a steel mill here, and people within the industry are shocked to see us this close to residential neighborhoods without major headaches.”
An example is the large “headache ball” that Nucor uses to break up slag. The force is so great from these pulverizers that without mitigation the pounding would be felt by the neighbors. Normally the slag would be processed without a second thought; however, Nucor had an idea. They experimented with different suppression and reduction ideas, eventually settled on a large rubber vibration absorption pad between the ball and the ground. Since its installation, the neighbors are happy, as long as Nucor hits the bull’s-eye.
With all this heavy machinery around, you think it would be a dangerous place to work. The dangers in steel mills are obvious. Yet with all these dangers, Nucor has been an the industry leader for safety.
“Safety is our business,” Kale added. “We have a yearly goal to come under a third of industry accident standards.”
Nucor takes a proactive approach to safety. They train their employees rigorously in safety protocols, to look at all the hazards a situation might cause, and try to remedy it before someone gets hurt. These efforts have paid off with the setting of plant safety records three years running.
These efforts, among others, have garnered Nucor numerous awards ranging from a letter of commendation from King County Commissioner Ron Sims to several environmental and workplace awards. These awards indicate that through its efforts, Nucor is changing the public perception of steel. Instead of a giant, dirty colossus, steel production can be a green, employee-friendly industry.
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