Equipment Retrofit at a Gary, Indiana Steel Mill

What was the challenge?

A steel manufacturing facility in Gary, Indiana was losing production to outdated equipment that broke down again and again. Each failure meant delays. Replacing the whole system would have meant a large capital expense and a long outage, so the plant asked for a way to upgrade what it had instead.

That is a common spot for mills in the Region. Much of the equipment is decades old. Some parts are obsolete, and a full replacement is hard to justify or schedule. The question was which parts were causing the failures, and whether they could be fixed for good.

How did SSI approach the retrofit?

We approached it in 4 steps: assess, fabricate, retrofit and test. One crew carried the job from first walk-down to recommissioning, with our Portage machine shop building the parts in between.

1. On-site assessment

Our team evaluated the equipment on site. We looked for the inefficiencies behind the breakdowns and sorted the components into two groups: what could be retrofitted, and what was still sound.

2. Custom fabrication

We used our machine shop to fabricate custom parts designed to fit the existing equipment. Building them to the plant’s existing layout meant the new parts dropped in without redesigning the system around them.

3. On-site retrofitting

Our crews installed the retrofit on site. The work included motor and gearbox laser alignment and process pipe modifications. Each change was planned to limit disruption to ongoing operations.

4. Testing and optimization

After installation, we tested the equipment and fine-tuned it. We made adjustments during testing until it ran the way it should.

What were the results?

The plant got its equipment back without buying a new system. The full job took 3 weeks from start to recommissioning.

• Fewer breakdowns and less downtime on the retrofitted equipment.
• No full system replacement. Retrofitting avoided the cost of new equipment.
• On schedule. The work was done within the plant’s timeline to limit the impact on production.

When does a retrofit make sense?

A retrofit makes sense when the core of a machine is sound but a few components keep failing, or when replacement parts are obsolete. It upgrades what fails and keeps what works. See equipment retrofitting and our work for steel mills, or call (219) 386-1506 to talk through your equipment.