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PERSPECTIVES: HITACHI HIGH-TECH ANALYTICAL SCIENCE
‘Things are going pretty good’ Hitachi High-Tech Analytical Science used to be known as Oxford Instruments and has a rich 45-year heritage, according to Dawn Brooks*. The company has an aggressive product and service development plan and aims to be more accessible to customers through social media platforms 1. How are things going at Hitachi High-Tech Analytical Science? Is the steel industry keeping you busy? Things are going pretty good since our transition from Oxford Instruments, which has gone very well. We’ve been Hitachi High-Tech Analytical Science for a year now, but we have a rich 45-year heritage. I’m really pleased with the growth we are seeing across our range of spectrometers. The steel and metals industry is a significant market for us globally. We’re seeing a high demand for our range of analysers, which consists of multiple spectroscopy techniques – OES (optical emission spectroscopy), XRF (X-ray fluorescence) and LIBS (laser induced breakdown spectroscopy). We’re in the unique position that we are able to offer the right product for the job to the industry. 2. What is your view on the current state of the global steel industry? Like most industries, I see a lot of rationalisation and change in production optimisation, increase in global demand and the use of recycled materials. While the industry might be going through a lot of changes, I do believe it’s for the good. It allows the steel industry to deliver better quality and higher grade steels. It does mean, though, that especially for clean and carbon steel, but also special and high-alloyed steels, high precision analysis instruments are more in demand. We may also see the number of steel mills reduce, but the quality of product will improve. 3. In which sector of the steel industry does Hitachi High-Tech Analytical Science mostly conduct its business?
We deal with a lot of secondary production companies with whom our OES analysers are popular. As the trend for 100% positive material identification is increasing, we’re seeing big growth in analysers being used for quality assurance and control. We also work with a lot of recycling and scrap companies and those that have a need for inspection of components before, during and after they are put in use in a process environment.
4. Steel Times International is buying, what’s your poison? A nice cup of tea, thanks. 5. Where in the world are you busiest at present? We sell globally, but China is definitely keeping us busy. Both from a sales and service perspective, but also as that’s where we have production too. We’ve had a good track record in EMEA and in the Americas we’re seeing a lot of growth in the market.
6. Can you discuss any major steel contracts you are currently working on? We’re working on 100% mix up avoidance automation projects with some major steel companies in Europe, the US and Asia. In addition, we’re also preparing a new approach for huge steel plants for a more at-line effective process control. 7. “Aluminium will always outperform steel on a weight basis; and on the stiffness issue alone it will carry the day,” said Alcoa’s chief technology officer Ray Kilmer speaking about aluminium usage within the global automotive industry. Where do you stand on the aluminium versus steel argument? Aluminium demand is growing especially with car manufacturers. Steel, though, still has a place for specific customer applications. We’ve got analysers that can analyse both steel and aluminium, so we’ve got an instrument in our range for all our customer’s analysis needs. 8. Is aluminium ‘greener’ than steel? It’s more about the process than the product. You can make it greener with process improvements including waste, cost and production efficiencies. 9. Why is Industry 4.0 so important to the future of steel production? People have been talking about 4.0 for a long time now, at least five to 10 years. We’re starting to see more and more automated factories, including aluminium and steel plants. What this means is that we’re seeing requests for automation from customers. Centralised data management
* Managing director September 2018
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05/09/2018 16:39:35