[pauljonas]

No.

These factors that I'm speaking of were more along the lines of:

- a slab caster implemented, but there is already a bloom caster and only one crane facility to support both so both ran at less than optimal throughput.

- choosing to prioritize far less profitable slab casting for output to a joint venture plant in CA than very profitable bloom casting (& union definitely not in favor of this)

- buying coke at 10X price they could get elsewhere because old buddy favoritism

Basically, the Japanese firms were built a much more holistic basis -- JIT engineering, so that liquid is pored, slabs created and were delivered right into finished product processing. Whereas, by contrast, in the mill I worked at, slabs would be cast, then would cool in a yard, heated & slitted, then heated again for strip mill processing (it cost quite a bit of energy to heat to 2200/2300 degrees).

I mean, my boss & I would even spitball on how much better the place would run if it was bought out and run by (at that time, late 80s / early 90s) a foreign competitor that made decisions on business sense rather than old boy political network machinations.

Basically, all about: MANAGEMENT, MANAGEMENT, MANAGEMENT.