Olofsfors, a Swedish manufacturer of steel products for the forestry and construction industries, has reduced its material usage, optimised its production process and developed a more fuel-efficient product by moving its production in house and switching to SSAB Boron 27 steel.

Maria Ragnarsson, Olofsfors’ head of purchasing and logistics (www.olofsfors.com), said: “We have moved from using pre-manufactured parts to buying steel that we press and manufacture with in-house. Now that we control our production process, we are generating less waste.

“Quality is one of our top priorities, so the material we use has to meet the required standards. We chose steel from SSAB because it maintains a high and consistent level of quality — and because SSAB is relatively local to us here in northern Sweden.”

In addition to optimising fuel consumption as a result of the lightweight properties of SSAB’s steel, the switch to SSAB Boron 27 has resulted in less material use and less waste for Olofsfors.

Mats Frangén, Olofsfors product development engineer, said: “The material waste percentage from cut steel can be as high as 50%, but with SSAB’s steel, we’ve reduced that figure significantly — and our material usage is down.

“We make some 400,000 side supports a year, and we are saving between 0.5 and 1kg of steel for each one, so we are heating less steel and wasting less steel.”

SSAB has production facilities in Sweden, Finland and the USA.