| Summary: | Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. === ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The 2008/2009 economic downturn had a major impact on the international steel industry. With economic activities declining, the demand for steel decreased and subsequently, prices started to tumble. This put a great deal of pressure on steel manufacturing companies’ financials and they had to focus on cost reduction initiatives to survive. Steel companies who did not follow a turnaround strategy were not able to keep up with the competition. This research study focused on determining the details pertaining to the ArcelorMittal Saldanha Works turnaround strategy, as it is viewed as one of the most successful in the steel industry.
Data was obtained from discussions with various role players and managers at ArcelorMittal Saldanha Works. The aim of the interviews was to get the detail of all the steps taken by the company to turn around its performance.
Quantitative data describing the operational as well as financial and cost performance was sourced from the ArcelorMittal Saldanha Works Key Performance Indicator (KPI) system and from financial statements and progress reports.
It was found that the basis for the turnaround strategy of ArcelorMittal Saldanha Works was World Class Manufacturing as it provided the vehicles through which improvements were managed with the aid of mainly the Autonomous Maintenance (AM), Professional Maintenance(PM), People Development (PD), Focused Improvement (FI), Product Quality (PQ) and Safety Pillars. The Cost Deployment (CD) Pillar was used to identify the biggest losses that needed to be addressed.
ArcelorMittal Saldanha Works moved from one of the highest-cost producers in the ArcelorMittal group during 2010 to the second-lowest-cost producer in the group at the end of 2013. It reduced its total cost of production with $70 per ton over this period, without any major capital expenditure.
The study concluded that the turnaround of ArcelorMittal Saldanha Works was successful and it is sustainable. This can be seen from the increase in the overall equipment availability, amount of hot-rolled coil tons produced, as well as the EBITDA figures reported in the study.
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