PIONEERING PROCESS FLEXIBILITY Myriad France is part of the global Tata Steel group and is the biggest steel coating manufacturer in Europe. Philip Yorke talked to Jean-Christoph Coffier, Myriad’s marketing director, about the company’s uniquely flexible production technology and its plans for future growth.
M
yriad Steel is part of the Tata Steel Group (formerly Corus), which is Europe’s largest steelmaker with operations in the UK and throughout mainland Europe. Tata Steel Europe has a crude steel production of 20 million tonnes per annum and supplies long and strip products to the construction, automotive, packaging, aerospace, engineering and energy industries worldwide. Myriad plays an important role as an integral part of the Tata Steel group’s activities in Europe, with a turnover of more than €300 million and the production of over 400,000 tonnes per year of organic, coated steel. This is produced for an infinite variety 134 Industry Europe
of industrial applications and the company employs more than 600 people at its manufacturing sites and offices in France.
Leading by example
Tata Steel Europe makes carbon steels, which gives it a competitive position in the construction and automotive sectors. It also makes engineering steels and is developing new, advanced high strength steels for industry. The company is organised under three distinct operating divisions. These are the long products division which supplies plate, wire rod and semi-finished steels, and the strip products division (Myriad) which sup-
plies hot-rolled steel strips, cold-rolled and metallic coated steel, as well as light-gauge coated steel and pre-finished steel products. The third division is the distribution and building systems division, which oversees service centres and supplies steel and aluminium products along with a range of specialist consultancy services. Myriad delivers a unique, customised valueadded range of tailor-made solutions and it leads by example when it comes to flexibility and customer service. Coffier said, “In Louvain we have two pre-finishing lines capable of more than 100,000 tonnes per year each, where we can produce customer specific
