Based on the results of fulfilling the August production target, the ball-rolling section of Kamet Steel rolling shop produced over 7,000 tonnes of grinding balls of various diameters for the first time. This is a record level of production in the entire history of the company’s ball-rolling mills.
Grinding balls are essential for the stable operation of mining and processing plants and are among the top margin-generating products, highly sought after in both Ukrainian and European markets. Therefore, increasing the productivity of the company’s rolling mills is a key area for prospective development. The systematic work of the rolling mill staff is focused on improving the efficiency of the production processes within the section and the shop.
The record achievement in the ball-rolling section in August is a clear result of team effort, the importance of which was emphasised at the end of last year. An important milestone was the establishment of a working group in the rolling shop, comprising the Head of the shop’s Technological Bureau, Tetiana Oliynyk; Senior Production Foreman, Serhiy Frolov; Shift Foreman, Andriy Lutsenko; and Section Manager, Stanislav Hanzha.
Stanislav HANZHA, Section Manager of the axle-rolling and ball-rolling mills:
“In every section, on every shift, and in every team, there are employees who strive for development and progress. The majority are young employees of the company, ready to propose and implement innovative solutions. Such as our young specialists Serhiy Bondarenko, Vitaliy Terentyev, Artem Bozhenko, Dmytro Mashkin, Vladyslav Mishurin, Yevheniy Shcherbachenko, and many others. The aim of the working group is to unite like-minded individuals and to develop and enhance our professional skills."
The proposed constructive and technological solutions were reviewed and implemented. Work was carried out across the entire technological line of the ball-rolling mills, covering all profile sizes. To stabilise the processes, the heating and billet charging procedures were improved, and technical solutions were implemented. In particular, for 100 mm diameter balls, changes were introduced to the control scheme of rollers 19 to 21 during billet discharge from the furnace, which allowed optimisation of the billet heating mode and increased the discharge frequency. Thanks to design modifications, the billet length was increased, which reduced the metal consumption for rolling production.
Result: In August, a record average profile productivity of 5.43 t/h was achieved in the production of grinding balls, which is 0.17 t/h higher than in April and 0.59 t/h above last year’s productivity for the actual product range. In September, the rolling mill staff continue to increase productivity across the main profile sizes.
Oleksandr OLIYNYK, Chief Roller – Head of the Rolling Shop:
“We have brought together the young staff and formed a team that represents the future of the shop and the entire company. Educated and ambitious specialists with a modern perspective on production processes, they are unafraid to propose unconventional ideas and to devise bold technical solutions for their implementation. The result of this work, never before achieved on Kamet Steel ball-rolling mills, is over 7,000 tonnes of grinding balls per month. Strong focus and teamwork drive the development of a professional workforce and also bring additional high-margin profit to the enterprise and the company. Over the first eight months of 2025, the impact of operational improvements in the ball-rolling mill section has already amounted to $600,000.
