CNES effort saves 50% of Lafarge Cement production

Corus Northern Engineering Services (CNES) has provided excellent service at exceptional speed by manufacturing a track ring for a coal grinding mill for Lafarge Cement UK in a mere four weeks

To make matters more exceptional, the work involved making a pattern and sourcing a casting through to machining and delivery, all through the Christmas period.

Whilst conducting an internal maintenance inspection, Lafarge Cement UK had found a crack in one of its track rings for the Crusher tables.

The tables hold the coal crushers in place, and act as a vital part in the cement making process.

Therefore, a short lead-time was needed to ensure no lost production was incurred, despite it being the Christmas period.

After consulting with various companies, the shortest lead-time available for this large machining job was six months.

This is where Corus came in, offering the customer the short lead-time it needed.

Aidan Wynne, Maintenance Manager at Lafarge explains: "We were really in a pickle when our traditional supplier could not expedite the item to us.

We also approached other foundries locally and in Europe and China but the lead times were prohibitive".

Alan Holdgate, estimator at CNES, confidently took on board the Lafarge job, despite such a busy period.

When the order was received on the 18th December, the drawings were sent and the Corus Pattern Shop began working on the patterns on 21st December.

An external company created the casting and heat-treated the table before delivery for machining to Corus, on 10th January.

Corus completed the machining over a long weekend.

The table arrived at Lafarge Cement UK Westbury Works on 15th January 2008, ready for Lafarge to install without a single day of lost time production.

According to Aidan Wynne, "The worst case scenario was a three month down time on one of our kiln lines, meaning CNES saved us around 50% of plant production in the first quarter of this year".

Corus has worked with Lafarge for a number of years now, forging a close working relationship.

Neil Ingall, Senior Planning and Business Development Manager from CNES comments, "CNES prides itself in reacting quickly to breakdown scenarios, developed over many years of supporting the steel industry.

The Lafarge track ring was a small job for our mechanical workshops but a very high priority job to the customer".

The Corus successful working relationships helped in other areas of the job too.

Ingall adds: "Only an excellent relationship with a local casting company enabled the casting to be poured within three days of the initial enquiry being placed with CNES".

Despite the fast lead-time, quality was not spared an inch, as Wynne describes, "Corus was excellent.

At all times the company kept us informed of the technical and time frame issues, even through the Christmas period.

This gave us a lot of confidence and showed the Corus people to be real professionals.

We got a technically excellent solution, on time and in cost when no one else could help us.

Our relationship with Corus Northern Engineering Services is excellent.

No job is too big or small, from kiln sections, to locomotive break shoes.

They always produce the goods for us.

In the past, they have re-shafted kiln support rollers in short lead times.

We like them because there are fewer and fewer suppliers these days who can do these big jobs in the UK," concludes Wynne.

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