Western Port Steel Mill Maintenance

BlueScope Steel Limited (Bluescope) operates a 1.5 million tonne per year capacity steel strip mill at Western Port, Victoria, Australia.

Bluescope is in a wide range of markets, including the automotive market. Steel importers and value-add operators continue to threaten Bluescope’s market share and Bluescope is experiencing “dramatically higher expectations from its customers”.  These expectations are expressed in terms of smaller and more frequent deliveries, shorter lead times between order and dispatch and much improved delivery performance. 

Bluescope determined that incremental improvement in historical performance would not be sufficient to meet customer expectations and retain market share.  Its business imperative therefore was to achieve a rapid and quantum step improvement in reliability and predictability of plant assets in order to unlock additional plant capacity at minimal capital cost, improve delivery performance and reduce total cost of manufacture. This increase in plant performance requires the close cooperation of all functions, particularly production, maintenance and engineering.

As part of a strategic review of the Western Port mill in 2002, Bluescope identified an overall objective to “Increase the total plant productive performance at Westernport while still maintaining operational integrity”. The strategy for achieving improved plant performance included engaging an external maintenance services organisation in an alliance partnership business arrangement to achieve:

Step change in site culture

Improved work effectiveness

Elimination of chronic defects

Improve plant uptime without capital expansion

The BSL / Silcar Alliance

Bluescope and Silcar formed an alliance in 2003to achieve the objectives listed on the previous page. An Australian expert on strategic partnering, Mr. Tony Lendrum, provides the following broad definition of strategic partnering and alliances”

“The cooperative development of successful, long term strategic relationships, based on trust, world-class and sustainable competitive advantage for all the partners…”

The Bluescope / Silcar alliance delivers, as well as technical excellence, an organisational culture of engagement, responsiveness, teamwork, flexibility and innovation focussed on the success of the Westernport business.  In this partnership Silcar provides a stable, satisfying work environment where people with the knowledge and experience necessary to safely and effectively perform vital tasks can build the process, plant knowledge and working relationships that are critical to eliminating defects and achieving improved plant uptime. 

The business arrangements between BSL and Silcar that underpin the partnership reflect depth and extent of the mutual commitment that is involved and the desired relationships and operating culture at BSL Western Port.  These arrangements include:

an evergreen agreement with a five year horizon providing security of employment and a long term focus on training and career development for the people involved.
reward linked to plant performance, this is not a fee for service or a cost plus percentage fee arrangement - Silcar cannot gain at the expense of the Bluescope Westernport business