Tata Ryerson eyes 140% jump in turnover
Business Standard — July 24, 2000

Calcutta: Tata Ryerson Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture between the steel major, Tata Iron and Steel Co Ltd (Tata Steel) and Ryerson Tull of US hopes to increase its turnover by 140 per cent to Rs 60 crore in the current financial year.

Tata Ryerson commissioned its first service centre for cold rolled (CR) products in Jamshedpur on July 22. J J Irani, managing director Tata Steel said, "Our intention was to change the scenario wherein more steel could be customised through service centres."

Investments made for the new centre were Rs 20 crore. While globally, 35 per cent of steel is purchased through service centres, the corresponding figure in India is less than 5 per cent.

The operations of Tata Ryerson and Tata Steel are being closely integrated through the SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.

John Elmore, chairman Tata Ryerson Ltd said, "Tata Steel is in talks with Ryerson Tull Inc to join the steel trading portal, metalsite.com." A proposal has also been offered to Tata Steel to put in place the metalsite.com model in India in partnership with other Asian steel majors. Metalsite.com has been floated by five steel behemoths, including Ryerson Tull.

It may be mentioned that Tata Steel is already in talks with Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) to launch a portal jointly for online steel trading. Investments in the e-commerce sphere will be Rs 50 crore.

Tata Ryerson plans to set up its next service which will also be exclusively for CR products in Pune for automobiles and appliances, next year.

The company commenced its operations in October 1997 with a hot rolled (HR) coil processing facility at Bara, Jamshedpur. The second service centre was established at Pune. Both these units have HR slitting, pickling and cut-to-length lines with a combined production capacity exceeding 400,000 mt per year