Contractors prefer to receive 'cut and bent' rebar because:

High-quality steel is processed accurately as per the   structural    drawings.
Just-in-time (JIT) delivery reduces the material handling   burden    onsite.
It is more cost efficient as scrap and inventory management   is outsourced to the rebar processor.

In order to deliver these advantages to construction firms, rebar processing factories need to take the following into account:

Initial site, factory and logistics planning

Accuracy of engineering drawings.

Material flow through the factory (from shearline to bending    machines).
Adequate feed stock and finished goods area.
Job mix optimisation to manage off-cuts and scrap.
Human resource management and training.

There are still many rebar shops in the area which work as 'job-shop' principals and have little automation to improve the flow through the factory.

The new rebar fabrication facility at Alam Steel Industries will have state-of-the-art technology to address these issues. Good initial planning on the site location, factory size and layout has meant that Alam has the ideal infrastructure to handle large tonnages and deliver on time.

Alam has three production lines to give the company the ability to mix large-scale projects with smaller intricate jobs. The raw material, which is mainly 12-metre-long bars, will be handled and fed into a high production shearline so that it does not interfere with WIP material movement and finished goods.

The shearline has been designed to allow Alam to load jobs in a flexible order which will maximise the output of the machine.

The factor which has the highest impact on cost of operations is scrap or material yield, and this can be kept under control by Alam's ability to mix different orders and optimise as large tonnages are only possible if there are enough storage facility for cut material. Alam has addressed that with six evacuation points on each shearline.

The automatic pocket system between the shearline and the bending station will enhance the optimisation process as it will be possible to accumulate a particular order over a period of time and then transfer it to the bending station without using an overhead crane.

The layout has been designed so that material can get transferred from the shearline to the bending machine without crane usage, with optimised quantity and with the right bundles ensuring there is no mixing of material.

All the machines are capable of communicating with the central computer. Downloading the production data without manual input increases the process reliability. Scanners have been put on the machine floors which can read the barcode of the job orders to eliminate human input error on the factory floor.

The production facility, apart from producing normal structural shapes, will also have the capability to offer other rebar products and prefabricated items such as spirals, rings and pile cages. The factory will also be able to provide cut to length straight bars.

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