The investment has been made in the site’s Continuous Annealing Process Line (CAPL), which softens the strip steels before they go on to be made into cans for food, petfood, aerosols and paint. 

Works Manager, Joe Gallacher, said: “This is one of the biggest single investments in Trostre in recent years and allows us to run the line faster and for longer, removing a key bottleneck at the plant. 
“With 70% of the plant’s output going through this processing line, that’s good for our customers, good for our employees and good for our performance.”

The investment has seen the complete replacement of all the drives – which are basically the brains that control the line – with a state-of-the-art new system. 

The six-week project involved more than 200 people working alongside key contractor, Danielli, which included training for the teams on the new system.

Mr Gallacher continued: “Since the line was commissioned, our shift production teams using the new control systems have responded with their usual passion and expertise by breaking the shift record twice in a short space of time. The shift and daily records are now constantly in their sights.”

The processing line has been described as the heartbeat of Tata Steel’s packaging steels operation at Trostre – and thanks to this major new investment, it now has the brains to match its brawn
 

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FUN FACTS

• Trostre is celebrating its own platinum jubilee, with 70 years of continuous operation
• Trostre employees around 600 people directly as well as hundreds of contractor partners
• The main Trostre plant building is thought to be the longest brick-built structure in Europe
• 100% of Heinz Baked Bean cans are made using steel cast at Port Talbot and rolled and coated with tin at Trostre
• The time spent between food harvesting, transport & canning is generally less than 4 hours
• Food packed in steel stays fresh for longer, retains its flavour and is less likely to be damaged, spoiled, or unnecessarily wasted
• Steel is the most recycled packaging material in Europe at 84% (glass 76%, aluminium beverage cans 73%, beverage cartons 51%, plastic 42%) – APEAL 2019
• Steel can be recycled forever with no loss of quality while plastics, cartons etc. only have a finite number of lives as the material degrades through each cycle
• Steel food cans are nearly 30% thinner than they were 30 years ago
• More facts and figures here