Corporate

A Rheem-arkable Achievement

BlueScope Steel has helped Rheem Water Heaters make a major reduction in the monthly steel stockholding of its operations.
    
Rheem General Manager, Jeff Elliott presented BlueScope Steel Account Manager, Roland Mapa with the Special Recognition Bronze Rheemarkable Award, recognising the outstanding relationship that has developed between our two companies.

Steel is a major component of Rheem hot water systems. COLORBOND® steel is used to manufacture the jackets and storage cylinder.

"Each year we supply 1 700 tonnes of hot rolled steel and 3 000 tonnes of pre-cut COLORBOND® steel, which is used to manufacture Rheem products for Australasian markets," Roland said.

Our relationship with Rheem, where we are now regarded as a model supplier, has undergone a complete transformation since the early 1980s. We have just concluded a new three-year contract with Rheem, which further recognises the major strides we have taken together in resolving numerous manufacturing and processing challenges.

Roland Mapa led a BlueScope Steel working group with support from technical, logistics, production and marketing representatives. The group has helped bring about dramatic improvements, including the introduction of a Kanban 'Just-In-Time' delivery system.

The Kanban system has contributed to a dramatic reduction in stock and has also led to quality improvements through minimising product damage and changed materials handling practices.

"The success of our working group can be measured by the close relationship that now exists between our two companies, where we involve the right people at the right time to resolve any issue or problem that arises during the entire manufacturing process," Roland said.

"One example is the assistance we have provided in analysing and improving Rheem's welding and materials rationalisation capabilities. We provided research and development support and expertise from our process control teams, to assess their processes and make recommendations on how the systems could be improved."

In conjunction with a capital investmetn program by Rheem, this sort of teamwork has also played a major role in lifting the company's production capacity from 1 200 to 2 000 heaters per day. 

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