May/June 1988
In a manner of speaking,
yes. On the other hand, global interest in better, more efficient
processing technology and methods is the strongest common denominator
among scrap plant operators from the U.K. to Korea. Five manufacturers,
whose equipment is sold internationally, give their general impressions of
why scrap operations around the world are more alike than they are
different.
By
Madelyn R. Callahan
Madelyn
R. Callahan is a Washington, D. C, writer who specializes in business
issues.
Do scrap technologies differ significantly from one country to the next?
Not
technically. The basic equipment and operations are universal; both
machinery and methods tend to be standard. In fact, equipment
manufacturers interviewed for this article agree that advanced means of
communication and modern ease of travel are gradually creating a global
community of homogeneous processors. They concur that "softer
factors" such as state of scrap facilities, cultural attitudes, and
business mentality--factors that, the manufacturers say, can be described
in only the broadest terms--affect
purchasing decisions to a slight degree. However, these softer factors do
not, as one would expect, create a world of difference.
For
example, processors in continental Europe and the U.S. alike are motivated
by profit, says Gunn Phillips, sales director for Dusseldorf,
Germany-based Lindemann Recycling Equipment, Inc. What varies is the role
that equipment plays in the profitmaking.
According
to Phillips, in America the equipment "must be efficient, must have
the capability to produce at the rate that the project requires, and, in
the end, must be a contributor to profit." But this is secondary, he
adds, because the project itself "has been structured so that there
is profit in it, in addition to the profit generated from the
equipment." Americans, he says, view their equipment as support.
But,
generally speaking, scrap processors in Europe are equipment-oriented,
Phillips says. "They're of the old-world craftsman kind of mentality.
That is, they have the initiative or the requirement to look at the
detailed design of the equipment and the performance specifications of the
equipment in great depth." Phillips notes that the pure craftsman
views the equipment as the sole source of profit.
In
countries like the U.S. and U.K., lengthy scrap processing histories may
account for the supportive role of the equipment, says Norman Coop, the
British director of the Italian shear manufacturer Vezzani U.K. Ltd., in
Berks.
He
calls the U.K. "a kind of battleground of scrap processing" due
to the origin of steelmaking there during the Industrial Revolution.
"Steel was being melted on the corner of every street. People always
collected scrap, as long as anyone can remember. They went around with
carts. There's always been a recycling business here, unlike in other
countries."
And
Britain's long tradition continues today. According to Thomas A. Wendt,
president of D&J Wendt Corporation,
in North Tonawanda, New York, the London metropolitan area may have as
many as 400 nonferrous scrap processors. Wendt says that he's always
surprised by the volume of small balers and shears that his Spanish line,
D&J Moros, supplies to England. They sell 70 to 200 every year.
Who
is buying these small pieces of equipment? Wendt's Moros representative
says there are hundreds of one- and two-man nonferrous scrap processors
working out of garages. Says Wendt, "They can fit one or two pieces
of equipment ... [they] literally have a truck or wagon, and they collect
and process metals."
Such
a legacy serves the U.K. well. According to Coop, the country has 10,000
registered scrap merchants (approximately 1,000 mechanized), 16 million
tons of steel produced per year, and 10 million tons of scrap processed
per year--5 million of it for export.
Worldwide
Plants, Preferences, and Approaches
In
countries where Coop has observed steelworks-owned businesses, such as
West Germany, the scrap plants--like steelworks--stress weekly production
goals. Coop describes the plants as "industrialized and organized,
highly disciplined-working in accordance with regulations and social
disciplines which give the people and the [plant] an industrial look in
every way. It is virtually like a manufacturing plant."
Newer
facilities throughout the world share the industrial look. Many are paved,
says Wendt, which may account for the prevalence of rubber-wheeled
hydraulic cranes at these plants, preferred over the cable variety.
Wendt
recalls walking the length of a Swiss facility that was "absolutely
clean--even in the pouring rain." The paved plant also had a street
sweeper and sewers throughout, "so the water didn't even build into
puddles."
Wendt
and Coop agree that costs prohibit similar upkeep and paving of the
world's larger, older plants.
Good
housekeeping, both men note, is common in small facilities across the
U.S., U.K., Europe, Australia, and South Africa, where efficiency depends
on cleanliness. Wendt says operators of these plants don't have the luxury
of extra room for stockpiling.
Wendt
thinks the small facilities, particularly in places where cities have
grown up around them, are productive because of space restrictions. The
material has to come in, it has to be processed, and it has to go out.
Part
of the efficiency Wendt describes is proper equipment maintenance. Small
operations can't afford to have a machine go down and to have to turn
business away.
Coop
says that attention to upkeep is notably high in the steelworks- or
government-controlled plants of Germany, Italy, Holland, Scandinavia,
Eastern Europe, and Soviet Russia. "Where the bulk of processing is
governed by larger groups, actual investment in plants is done on a
business-plan basis." Equipment will be replaced every five years or
according to a business plan, he says.
But
this emphasis makes selling equipment to Eastern Bloc countries tough,
according to Coop, because of stringent rules, penalty clauses, and
high-performance tests. A machine "must run for 12 months; otherwise
you've got to pick it up and take it back."
Power
Efficiency a European Priority?
Power-efficient
equipment, says Wendt, is another high priority for Europeans.
"That's basically because Europe doesn't have the electrical power
we're used to in America. If I wanted to put in another great big machine,
I'd call my power company and say 'I want another thousand amps of
service.' They'd be here tomorrow hanging transformers and putting in a
nice big electric meter and then next month start sending me that bill.
They'd be thrilled."
And
although electricity and horsepower are cheap virtually anywhere in the
states, in Europe it's not a matter of cost. "If you have all the
money in the world, you may not be able to run a 500 horsepower motor. ...
[The power] just isn't there, unless you want to put in your own power
station."
Energy
conservation is a way of life in Europe as well as the U.K., and it is an
automatic consideration in equipment design. A Dutch 550-ton shear that
uses a single 125 horsepower motor with a flywheel and a pump makes
approximately seven cuts per minute. The American version, says Wendt,
would be 300 horsepower and make six cuts per minute.
A
major impact on energy conservation and recycling overseas, he says, is
government support, which makes for a healthy industry. That's not the
case in America, he adds, where Congress has eliminated the investment tax
credits that processors enjoyed during the 1970s.
"There
are excellent tax advantages to recycling in Europe. It's all very highly
promoted, encouraged, and backed by government because it's conserving
energy."
But,
according to Scott Newell, president of San Antonio, Texas-based Newell
Industries, Inc., overseas sensitivity to power demands is lessening. He
says his company, which produces shredders and separating systems, sells
higher horsepower equipment to plants outside the U.S.
New
Equipment in Emerging Industrial Countries
Emerging
industrial countries are also upgrading their processing methods and
becoming mechanized, albeit slowly. Roy E. LaBounty, president of LaBounty
Manufacturing, Inc., based in Two Harbors, Minnesota, says that though
torches still predominate in Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore, and South
Korea--where there is ample cheap labor--some areas are buying equipment
for the big operations of supplying steel mills and breaking ships.
"Now that new technology is coming along, they are changing,"
LaBounty says. "The lower cost technology of a mobile shear gives
them a better way. They can buy an excavator and a small shear to replace
the burners."
Inasmuch
as general preferences and approaches vary slightly throughout the world,
they are influenced not by technology, but, for the most part, by a
country's available resources, needs, and values. Scrap technology,
especially advancements in equipment and methods, is the firm common
ground for the world's processors, even those of newly industrialized
countries. That interest in technological developments, according to
Newell, isn't likely to change:
"I've
been traveling for 20 years, and I've noticed there's much less of a
difference between the modern processing plants among different countries.
They're much more similar today than they ever were before. People travel
more, they see what goes on more; people attend international conferences,
they go to the equipment exhibits.
In a manner of speaking, yes. On the other hand, global interest in better, more efficient processing technology and methods is the strongest common denominator among scrap plant operators from the U.K. to Korea. Five manufacturers, whose equipment is sold internationally, give their general impressions of why scrap operations around the world are more alike than they are different.