[pauljonas]

It's been a few decades but I worked for USS as a developer, after attaining a computer science degree.

I know it's a tired old adage that labor / labor unions was the reason for American steel manufacturing decline and rise of Japanese dominance. But from the inside, that simply wasn't so -- it was more a case that Japanese mills not only more modern but the entire manufacturing process, from casting to finished product, was more efficient. Even when new US mills gained new technology, it wasn't thought through and decisions seemed to be made the basis of old boy network than solid business acumen.

[chaostheory]

But weren’t the unions also against changing the process?

[pauljonas]

No.

These factors that I'm speaking of were more along the lines of:

- a slab caster implemented, but there is already a bloom caster and only one crane facility to support both so both ran at less than optimal throughput.

- choosing to prioritize far less profitable slab casting for output to a joint venture plant in CA than very profitable bloom casting (& union definitely not in favor of this)

- buying coke at 10X price they could get elsewhere because old buddy favoritism

Basically, the Japanese firms were built a much more holistic basis -- JIT engineering, so that liquid is pored, slabs created and were delivered right into finished product processing. Whereas, by contrast, in the mill I worked at, slabs would be cast, then would cool in a yard, heated & slitted, then heated again for strip mill processing (it cost quite a bit of energy to heat to 2200/2300 degrees).

I mean, my boss & I would even spitball on how much better the place would run if it was bought out and run by (at that time, late 80s / early 90s) a foreign competitor that made decisions on business sense rather than old boy political network machinations.

Basically, all about: MANAGEMENT, MANAGEMENT, MANAGEMENT.