New Water Filters Reduce Downtime at Steel Proccesing Plant

When Steel Dynamics’ Butler, Indiana, cold steel processing plant has to shut down its production line for any reason, the cost in lost production is about $25,000 per hour. So when the facility was forced to shut down for three hours at a time every six months or so in order to replace water pump parts, maintenance supervisor Brian Butcher decided there had to be a better way. Between lost production time and the high cost of water pump replacement parts, Steel Dynamics was spending a fortune on water treatment.

“And this was a redundant system,” says Butcher. “The main water filtration happens at a different facility about 300 yards away. But periodically the water that comes to us is contaminated with grease and oil. When that happens we have a backup system that kicks in. And since we never know when the dirty water will hit, our backup system must be ready to go. It’s like an insurance policy.” Clean water is essential for Steel Dynamics’ cold steel processing applications.

To solve the plant’s water filtration problems and minimize downtime and parts replacement costs, the Butler plant switched from sand filters to carbon steel filters. While the new