Research and Development Center in Ternium Pesquería.
What makes a company able to adapt to the new market challenges?
The answer is clear: innovation, research, development, and the incorporation of new technologies.
If a company doesn't innovate and incorporate newer solutions and procedures that help to adapt to new trends and market challenges; the risk for obsolescence is very high.
Therefore, Ternium is constantly betting for innovation, the development of new processes and products, and incorporating technologies focused in Industry 4.0. These wagers also group new ideas and knowledge of agents foreign to the company so as to achieve what is considered ‘open innovation’.
An example of this is John Speer, director of Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center (ASPPRC) and lecturer at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, United States, who from mid-October on, started a research stay at the Center for Research and Development at the Ternium Industrial Center.
These last weeks, Speer has collaborated with Ternium in projects for the development of new types of steel in the Hot Steel Mill 4 (MC4) and in projects related to research and development in the whole company. He has also given talks and lectures to company collaborators and universities in the area.
“This has been a process of open innovation. The way in which researchers work is learning one from the other, we learn a lot from people all around the world. They are all different ways of thinking and this contributes to having better ideas. When I return to Colorado, I will have different perspectives for the use of different tools and getting new and improved advanced steel”, Speer highlighted.
John Speer, lecturer at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden Colorado, United States, is doing a research stay at Pesquería.
The lecturer is considered to be one of the "founders” of advanced third-generation steel, which is fundamental for the needs of key industries like the automobile sector. In 2017 he was given the “Bessemer Gold Medal” award, which is considered something like the Nobel Prize for the smelting industry.
“All efforts being done by the company in which we involve open innovation are given through contact and collaboration with researchers from Universities and Research Centers at a world scale, and their focus is in trying to exceed the expectations of our clients”, Omar García, manager for Research and Development of Ternium, highlighted.
The Center for Research and Development is one of the most important infrastructures for the company since it will allow for an increase in the number of tests and characterizations needed to guarantee quality and the development of new kinds of steel.
These kinds of places are key, especially for the adaptation to new trends like those of the automobile industry. “Automobile steel advances very quickly, this industry encourages a lot of research and pushes the limits of products, trying to make the automobiles of the future more efficient, safe, and environmentally-friendly”, Speer said.
The new Hot Steel Laminator Mill at the Ternium Industrial Center, with a capacity of 4.4 million tons a year for specialized steel is a great wager to comply with the needs of sectors looking to make their products more efficient.
“This is a highly advanced facility which brings a great opportunity for the future, to be able to satisfy the customer’s needs and produce different families of steel for the company. I believe that advanced technologies integrated into the new Hot Steel Laminator Mill will give us the opportunity to develop new products for the markets,” he said. “Ternium’s future is very bright”.