Sandvik’s wire production facility in Sandviken, Sweden has begun its first production runs after a major fire attacked the facility. The fire took place on 14 April and continued on into 15 April 2011, destroying equipment and damaging parts. The pickling plant within the wire production facility was completely destroyed and some of the wire drawing machines were damaged. No one was injured. After a complete assessment of the damage, work began immediately on decontaminating, cleaning, repairing and, where applicable, replacing the plant. Large sections of the roof had to be replaced; other major internal work included the replacement of all the main services such as high voltage electricity, compressed air, cooling water and protective gases for the furnaces.
Thanks to Sandvik’s major incident program, the combined resources of the company mobilized to make certain the plant was back in production within the shortest amount of time. An important part of the plan was to ensure supply of product to customers at the earliest opportunity; within two weeks product was being dispatched from stock to meet a number of existing customer orders. Production of some wire products were also transferred to Sandvik’s eight wire production units across the globe. Due to the magnitude of the incident, there has been a disruption in supply despite all of the measures Sandvik has taken towards a speedy recovery.
The plant is now producing on a 5-shift system to reduce the delayed workload. However, as a result of the plant re-commissioning and start-up phase, operational speeds are lower as it takes time to return the production to normal speed after such a major incident. Throughout this ordeal Sandvik has continued to keep its customers informed, as part of its operational transparency. While there are still a few products that have yet to go back into production, the company is doing everything in its power to resolve this as quickly as possible.
