The Galvanizing Technology Committee (GTC) and the Electroplating Technology Committee (EPTC) held a joint meeting Sept. 24–26 in Merrillville, Ind. The meeting began with producers only on the 24th and continued on the 25th with the suppliers. Eric Almquist of Star Tool & Die Works is the chair of both committees and called the meeting to order. He welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked the attendees to introduce themselves. He then gave a brief presentation of how these committees were formed from the former AISI Metallic Coated Sheet Manufacturing Committee, AISI Tin Mill Practices Manufacturing Committee and AIST Coating and Process Lines Operating Committee. He established the meeting “ground rules” of supplier conduct, which is to keep all the discussions technical during the meeting without any commercialism. C.J. Wu of United States Steel Corporation provided an overview of the AESF Group, whose focus is continuous electroplating of metals to steel strip. The AESF Group is considering blending with the EPTC in the future. The meeting continued with a discussion on the safety survey. The next discussion was on energy and utilities within their plants. The committees split into separate rooms for the afternoon. The GTC producer-only group discussed the furnace survey, which had a broad range of topics, including furnace types, refractory used and where, burner types and furnace management. They continued their discussions to the zinc bath management survey. The EPTC producer-only group started with a discussion on plating methods, led by Charlie Chaban of Severstal and Mr. Wu. Giovanni Astengo of Tenova Strip Processing gave a technical presentation on the latest developments of insoluble anodes for tinplating. Andrew Procopio of Inductotherm provided a technical presentation on the history and latest developments of tin reflow furnace options. The committee elected to change its name to the Tinplate & Electrogalvanizing Technology Committee (TETC). The full GTC met on the morning of the 25th, with the committee defining their mission statement and selecting abstracts for AISTech 2009. Frank Goodwin of the International Lead Zinc Research Organization presented an overview of Corus’ new proprietary hot-dip coating, MagiZinc. Shrikant Bhat of ArcelorMittal provided an informative technical presentation about advances in high-strength steels for automotive applications. The GTC elected Stavros Fountoulakis of ArcelorMittal as the producer co-chair. The next GTC meeting will be in Fairfield, Ala., on March 4–5, 2009, and will include a tour of U. S. Steel’s Fairfield galvanizing line. The full EPTC met on the morning of the 25th, with the committee defining their mission statement and selecting abstracts for AISTech 2009. The next EPTC meeting will be in Weirton, W.Va., on April 21–23, 2009, with possible tours of either ArcelorMittal Weirton or Ohio Coatings Co. Both full committees then met in the afternoon, beginning with a panel discussion on energy, chaired by David Schalles of Bloom Engineering, Gerald Vellente of Ajax Tocco, Ram Ramalingam of ADS Machinery Corp. and Eugene Arnold of ArcelorMittal. The meeting finished on the morning of the 26th, with the GTC visiting the galvanizing lines at U. S. Steel–Midwest and the EPTC visiting the tin mill at U. S. Steel–Gary Works.

The Coating and Process Lines Operating Committee (CPLOC) met at AISTech 2008 on May 6, 2008. The committee chair, Frank Goodwin of the International Lead Zinc Research Organization Inc., welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked each person to introduce themselves. Dr. Goodwin volunteered to take the meeting minutes. The CPLOC had 93 members before being restructured into two new committees: the Galvanizing Technology Committee (GTC) and the Electroplating Technology Committee (EPTC). The GTC integrated with the former AISI Manufacturing Committee on Metallic Coated Sheet Practices, and the EPTC integrated with the former AISI Manufacturing Committee on Tin Mill Practices. The CPLOC members had the option to belong to either or both of the new committees. Within both the GTC and the EPTC, a producer-only subcommittee was developed to meet the needs of the AISI predecessor committees. A steel producer will chair each of these subcommittees. Dr. Goodwin reviewed the objectives of the former AIST committee, which was to facilitate peer-to-peer communication among its members. This consisted mainly of developing programming for the AISTech and MS&T conferences held each year, and also other short courses, specialty training conferences, and meetings as desired by its members. The AISI committee facilitated peer-to-peer communication among line operators, and this had been very successfully done through the use of questionnaires that prepared participants for the meetings. This, together with plant tours, facilitated dialogue and helped meet the objectives of the AISI committee very well. Dr. Goodwin urged that these practices be preserved. The group discussed the different makeup of the two predecessor committees, with the AIST committee consisting of engineering and technical personnel and the AISI committee consisting of operating personnel. It will be necessary to develop a program of interest to both if the integration is to succeed. The election of officers took place. Eric Almquist of Star Tool and Die Works Inc. was elected chair, and Stan Shepard of Olympus Manufacturing Systems Inc. was elected vice chair. Mr. Almquist presented Dr. Goodwin a plaque for his exceptional service and dedication as committee chair for 2007–2008. The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 24–26, 2008, in the East Chicago area. Visit www.aist.org for current details.

March 5-7, 2008 -The Coating and Process Lines Operating Committee (CPLOC) held a joint meeting with the AISI Manufacturing Committee on Metallic Coated Sheet on March 5–7 in Fontana, Calif. This was the first joint meeting of these committees. Tim McCrea of ArcelorMittal chaired the meeting. The meeting began with discussions concerning the safety questionnaire that each of the participating steel producers completed before the meeting. Topics such as safety reporting procedures, recent incidents and safety awareness were openly discussed, allowing each member to learn from the experiences of the others. The same philosophy was used for the next survey: coating weight control. The coating weight survey was followed by two companies presenting their technology for controlling coating weight. The group then split into smaller groups, each with the task of establishing a set of survey questions for topics that the whole group felt was relevant. This allowed the individuals the opportunity to give input on a subject they were most familiar with. The breakout groups then gave a summary of their results to the entire group. The questions that each group established will be the basis of the surveys that will be used at the fall meeting. On the second day of the meeting, the operating performance benchmarking, quality problem-solving and welder surveys were discussed. This was followed by a presentation by a major welding machine manufacturer. A plant tour of California Steel’s two galvanizing lines capped off this very informative meeting. The next meeting of the CPLOC will be May 6 from noon until 2 p.m. during AISTech 2008 in Pittsburgh Pa.