AIST Foundation Steel Intern Scholarship
Justin L. Culp
Being a recipient of an AIST Steel Intern Scholarship gave me many opportunities to intern at steel mills across the country. I chose to intern at U. S. Steel–Mon Valley Works in West Mifflin, Pa., USA, as a Quality Assurance intern and had unique opportunities. U. S. Steel is experiencing a significant breakthrough with the national news of Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U. S. Steel. I was able to attend major events like the President’s speech at the Irwin plant. Besides these historical events, I am also learning how steel is made and sold efficiently.
I spent the first two to three weeks learning about the mill and all the different positions there. This allowed me to explore various future careers I might pursue one day. After understanding how everything and everyone plays a key role in the mill, I was assigned a couple of projects, including a measurement system analysis (MSA). An MSA is crucial to ensure that standard operating procedures are performed accurately and efficiently, which is essential for minimizing waste of material and time to produce a high-quality product. The MSA was conducted on key workers who oversee the quality of the steel as it passes through different parts of the mill, looking for defects that could potentially be passed onto the next coil.
In addition to performing an MSA, I also investigated a quality complaint fromcustomers. This required precision, patience and attention to detail, as I inspected over a hundred coils before and after being pressed to the customer’s required gauge. Alongside the hands-on experience, I practiced and taught myself to be proficient in Excel for cost analysis. While talking to operators at an annealing line, I found that they receive a lot of incoming damage for heavier gauges of steel that do not get inner diameter banding. A potential solution would be to add an inner band for traveling between the previous rolling line and the current annealing line. To prove that inner banding relates to incoming damage, I would review the average incoming damage for gauges that receive inner banding compared to those that do not. Normally, lighter gauges receive more damage when traveling around the mill, so it is uncommon for the incoming damage to be lower for higher gauges, but this is the case in this situation. By comparing the two averages to find the difference in tonnage lost, I was able to quantify how much more steel of the heavier grade is being lost due to incoming damage, providing a dollar amount.
Overall, my experience at U. S. Steel was one of a kind and will always be memorable. I would encourage any student to look into a position at a local steel mill for their future career or for summer help and to reach out to AIST to help get their career started. Lastly, I would like to thank everyone at AIST who gave me this opportunity to learn more about what I want to do with my future. Thank you!