Tata Steel has made a major new investment in a processing line at its Trostre plant in Llanelli.
The Indian steelmaker has invested £6m in new technology to upgrade its processing line at its packaging steels operation.
The new investment sees new technology installed in the site’s Continuous Annealing Process Line (CAPL), which softens the strip steels before they go on to be made into cans for food, pet food, aerosols and paint.
This has meant a complete replacement of all the drives which control with line with a new system.
Works manager Joe Gallacher said: “This is one of the biggest single investments in Trostre in recent years and allows us to run the line faster and for longer, removing a key bottleneck at the plant.”
He added: “With 70% of the plant’s output going through this processing line, that’s good for our customers, good for our employees and good for our performance.”
The project took six weeks to complete and involved more than 200 Tata employees working alongside contractor Danielli and included training for the teams on the new system.
The plant said the investment is already paying dividends with record-breaking performances.
Mr Gallacher said: “Since the line was commissioned, our shift production teams using the new control systems have responded with their usual passion and expertise by breaking the shift record twice in a short space of time. The shift and daily records are now constantly in their sights.”
Tata’s Trostre plant employs around 600 people directly alongside hundreds of contractor partners.
The Tata Steel Group employs more than 8,000 people and has an annual crude steel capacity of 5m tonnes. It recorded a consolidated turnover of $32bn (£27bn) in the financial year ending March 31 2022.
