It is a warm, sunny day at SSABs education center Haganäs, some ten kilometers from SSAB Tunnplåt in Borlänge. It is a relaxing environment and a perfect place to meet customers, this time from Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Ecuador.

The agenda for the meeting is ambitious; during a couple of days some ten customers, who construct trailers and tippers for the South American market, have been educated in topics like the design, forming and welding of high strength steel. The event is a cooperation between SSAB Tunnplåt and SSAB Oxelösund, since the two have a similar customer base in South America. This market is especially targeted for different high strength steels like Domex and Docol and the Hardox quality from Oxelösund.

One of the seminar leaders in Borlänge is Mikael Reinberth, a join specialist at SSAB Tunnplåt: “This course is a nice way to strenghten relations with our customers. At the same time it is important to convey our knowledge on how to technically utilize SSAB’s high strengh steel in the best manner. Our most important message is to show that the use of our steel products like Domex and Docol increases customers competitive power. Our customers production costs will also decrease over time.”

One of SSABs big customers in Brazil is Rosetti. The company’s most important product is tippers for the mining industry. Fabio Soave is a product engineer at Rosetti: “I came to Sweden with the expectation that SSAB would provide my company with both technical and quality measures, so we will be able to produce lighter and stronger tippers. The weight of the tippers has a huge impact on the end users profitability and less weight is also positive for the environment.”

“When I return home I will have better knowledge of SSABs high strength steel and how they can be used in our production.

Mikael Reinberth again: “Changing from soft steel qualities to advanced high strength steel, involves a change that can be difficult to carry through if the customer lacks knowledge about the characteristics of the steels. Therefore it´s important to know how the customer, for example, designs the products to be able to gain from the advantages of high strength steel.”

“It´s also of great importance for the customer to know that they can use the company’s ordinary technical equipment in methods of work like forming and welding. Many think that working with high strength steel demands heavy investment. We want to show our customers how to handle our products in order to avoid problems and expensive investments.”

Mikael Reinberth underlines the importance that SSAB Tunnplåt and SSAB Oxelösund show one face to the customer: “It´s our conviction that both SSAB and our customers will be stronger on the market because of this cooperation.”