Being a flexible supplier requires fast access to materials. This is why BILSTEIN maintains its own hot-strip storage in house. The storage, removal, and inventory management of the coils are automated—enabling quick and efficient delivery to our plants. Customers then benefit from fast access to our hot-strip services. In addition, our internal hot-strip logistics network is designed to preserve the quality of the products, ensuring the market's extremely high standards are met from day one.

We use our own slitting line to cut hot strip to the desired width and, where needed, trim the edges. A high throughput and extremely accurate belt guarantee the performance of the system at all times, and the system always reflects the latest technology. The feeding of the strip into the cutters often takes place fully automatically. Meanwhile, robots handle the cutting and there is no manual intervention whatsoever. Because for us, safety comes first.

Strip thickness is reduced in accordance with the mechanical and technical properties required and takes places on two tandem mills with three or four stands. We measure the strip width and profile using X-ray technology, while flatness analysis and hole detection ensure tight, reproducible tolerances along the entire length of the strip, as well as top product quality.

To precision-clean the surfaces, we use an optimized emulsion and high-pressure strip cleaning. During the rolling process, strip feeders and flanged pulleys allow us to optimize strip tension.

What's more, BILSTEIN has one four-high and one thick-roll reversing mill.

BILSTEIN uses state-of-the-art, often fully automated annealing technology with high-convection hydrogen annealing. This ensures an even temperature distribution with only slight deviations from the coil volume. We guarantee optimum strip cleanliness alongside very tight mechanical and technical tolerances, zero oxidation, uniform technical values, bright, spotless surfaces, and zero oxidation along the edges. A variety of annealing programs enable us to provide a broad range of quality standards with a high degree of flexibility.

When it comes to heat treatment, we possess integrated, system-specific expertise. The annealing lines, which operate around the clock with batch sizes of 66–88 tons, are automatically controlled, monitored, and logged, ensuring a high degree of accuracy in meeting the desired mechanical and technical values and structures.

Skin-pass rolling ensures that the steel strip has the exact mechanical and technical properties, thickness, and flatness required, as well as the desired finish and transverse contour. Depending on the specific requirement, we have three four-high mills available for higher-quality temper rolling or thicker strips, and six two-high mills for minimum forming and special surfaces. We use isotopic measuring tools to control the thickness, flat rollers to ensure the evenness of the strip, and a laser system to detect transverse buckling in closed-loop control.

BILSTEIN uses six slitting lines and one cut-to-length line to complete its processing. The strips are slit according to the customer's required thickness and the transverse/longitudinal bow adjusted. Each slitter has special features to serve the complete range of quality standards and dimensions customers need. As well as the usual technology, we have a slitting line with stands that can be positioned and configured to guarantee a parallel blade clearance. A hydraulically inflatable shaft prevents the radial run-out of the blades. Meanwhile, a robotic system determines the cutting combination, which is then automatically applied to the shearing mill. Together with the blade concentricity, this ensures extremely tight strip width tolerances. Each shearing plant is connected to a packaging line, which reduces processing times and means orders are moved quickly on to fulfillment.

Our packaging lines are equipped with cutting-edge technology, including the automated transfer of operational data and robotic coil transporters. The system has a double strapping head for steel and plastic straps, which means the correct transverse strapping option is selected according to the thickness and strength of the strap. For steel strapping, TITANARG® welded joints are used. This patented seal, based on the TIG-welding method, is the world's strongest and most secure seal available for steel strapping. Cold strip coils with low thicknesses are transported on plastic conveyor belts to preserve the quality of their edges.

In addition to standard packaging, we can deliver our products to customers in moisture-resistant paper and jute, in wooden crates, or in another type of specially requested packaging.