Background
The Oswego plant, in New York State, USA, is Novelis’ largest wholly owned fabrication facility in North America. The site is equipped for aluminium scrap remelting, ingot casting, and hot and cold rolling.
Prior to installing a new tension leveller line, the Engineering team at the Oswego plant wanted the lead operating crew to be fully trained in the theory of the process. This was to supplement practical training which had already taken place in Kingston, Canada, and would enable the crew to be fully involved in the commissioning of the line.
How we were involved
Dan Miller, who is part of our Process Improvement group, was responsible for the tension leveller training, having developed a similar course for the Novelis facility at Pindamonhangaba in Brazil.
Dan’s course for Oswego covered general topics such as the principles of tension levelling and the different types of tension leveller within the Novelis group. He also covered specific areas such as the electronic and drive controls for the Oswego line, and introduced the team to a simulation of the line developed by Innoval Technology on behalf of Novelis Inc.
Practical aspects accompanied the theory, including how to judge if a sheet is flat and how to configure the line in order to get good flat sheet.
Services Involved
- Product & Process Training
- Process Improvement
- Rolling
This case study appears as an article in the 2007 edition of ‘innform’; the newsletter of Innoval Technology.
This is one of the best training sessions we have done, both from the usefulness of the material and the manner with which Dan presented and engaged the participants. Overall I have no doubt that we will reap the benefits of this new basic tension leveller understanding as soon as we begin commissioning, and definitely during start up.
Adriano Ferreira, Director of Business Improvement & Innovation
Very informative. I wish I had been given this training years ago.
Tension leveller operator
