Control panels for arcelormittal production line

“Actually, they do almost everything. They’re like a turnkey builder for homes, only they work in industrial production environments. A designated contact for everything,” says Project Manager Alejandro Jimenez. They, Andritz, are an Austrian plant engineering group that commissioned us to build control panels for a new production line for ArcelorMittal.

“Andritz is a multinational with more than 20,000 employees. They are sub-divided into four divisions: water, metals, pulp & paper and separation techniques. Our collaboration was with the metal division. This was also our first partnership, so we travelled to Graz to introduce them to P&V and get better acquainted. How could we benefit each other? How do they approach their work? We quickly felt that our companies were a good match.”

“We were not familiar with Andritz at the time, but we knew their end customer, the steel processing company ArcelorMittal, more specifically, their establishment in Ghent, for which we had already built panels. So we were familiar with the company and its machinery. And we knew what was important to them. Obviously, that was a major advantage for Andritz.”

“In concrete terms, ArcelorMittal wanted a new production line for cold welding. Andritz engineered everything from A to Z. But they were looking for someone with the knowledge to refine their designs for the control panels for the production line. And to build everything, of course.”

“Since this is our first collaboration with Andritz, the colleagues from ‘new business’ played an important role in this project. That is our own business unit within P&V that focuses solely on new customers. The extra manpower is necessary to go into the details. After all, every client has their own way of working. At P&V, we wanted to fully familiarize ourselves with it, so that we could make the best possible proposal.”

SEVENTY CONTROL PANELS FOR PRODUCTION LINE

“And with great success. That’s clear from the fact that ArcelorMittal and Andritz had almost no comments and were satisfied with the end result. This order was for seventy panels, control panels that controlled the motors for the entire line: lifts, presses, cutting machines, etc.; all of which are different.”

“Another special item was the power distribution inside the panel. Normally, this is AC voltage, but, in this case, it was DC. So they were not straightforward panels. To give you an idea about the scope of the project, the people from Andritz were here for a total of three weeks for testing.”