Winners of the 2024 Stainless Steel Industry Awards

23 May 2024 | Istanbul, Türkiye

During the Annual Awards Ceremony of the world stainless association the winners of the 2024 Stainless Steel Industry Awards were announced. The Awards are given in four categories, Market Development, Technology, Safety and Sustainability. Since 2010 the association awards good practices and novel ideas in these categories every year.

In the category of Market Development, the Gold Award was presented to Nippon Yakin Kogyo for their Round-dot patterned stainless steel plate which enables smooth operations when using roll box pallets and similar products on these surfaces. The Polka Plate excels in anti-slip property, cleanability and water drainage. In addition to the already named features, it is also easier to roll box pallets than on traditional patterned steel floors; it also reduces the noise levels. Discover the application here.

The Silver Award was for North American Stainless for the Louvered Pipe for Ground Water Applications (click here) and the Bronze Award was for the Stainless steel coastal fencing solution sent by the Australian Stainless Steel Development Association (click here).

The Gold Award in the Technology Category was for JFE Steel Corporation for their development of water-solulable belt grinding oil for coil grinding lines. In order to produce attractive stainless steel finishes, or to remove surface defects, the surface of stainless steel strips are sometimes finished by coil grinding line or by coil polishing. The belt grinding oil is used as a lubricant in these lines. Since this belt grinding oil is based on mineral oil, it is flammable, and there is a high risk of fire occurring by the accidents such as strip breakages or various other equipment troubles. In collaboration with Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd., JFE Steel Corporation have developed a water-soluble belt grinding oil that has better grinding properties than mineral oil-based belt grinding oils. The grinding oil reduced the risk of fire and costs. Discover more about this oil here.

POSCO was the winner of the Silver and Bronze Awards, for the high conductive ferritic stainless steel for solid oxide fuel cell separator (click here) and the austenitic stainless steel with high strength and cryogenic toughness for liquefied hydrogen environment (click here) respectively.

For awarding companies in the Safety section, the jury looked for practical innovations that reduce the number of safety incidents in the workplace and/or develop transferrable countermeasures to avoid specific injury types and develop both controls and workers skills / cultural mindsets to directly reduce the number of safety incidents. The winner of the Gold Award in this section was Aperam for the Global Machinery Safety Roadmap. This action plan is specifically created to improve Machinery Safety within Aperam. The result of the project can be seen in the decrease in the number of alerts reported and the increase in knowledge at all levels of the organisation. Discover the Safety Roadmap here.

The Silver Award was for Columbus Stainless for the Grinding Wheel Tilting Solution (click here). The Bronze Award went to Roldan S.A. for the Colour and sign signalling to improve identification of overhead crane movements (click here).

In the Sustainability Category, the Gold Award went to Nippon Steel Stainless Steel Corporation for the Shikishima Water Tower in Maebashi, Gunma. Japan's water utilities are facing a number of issues, including decreasing revenue from the amount of water being distributed due to the declining population. In particular, renewing aging facilities and strengthening resistance against earthquake damage have become urgent issues as the number of severe disasters have been occurring more frequently in recent years. Stainless steel water reservoirs are sustainable and resilient water facilities, and is one solution to the problems which Japanese water utilities are facing. The Shikishima Water Tower is recognized as a safe and durable facility that can serve as an important base for emergency water supply activities during disasters. Discover the Water Tower and its advantages here.

The Silver Award in this category was for Acerinox Europe for the Reduction of environmental pollution in the external areas of the Steel plant (click here) and the Bronze Award was for Bahru Stainless for their Sustainable packing material for continual re-use (click here).

worldstainless would like to congratulate the winners and all member companies that have sent case studies. Once again, this year, the quality of the proposed projects was found to be high, which proves that the stainless steel industry is dynamic, innovative and forward thinking all of which go to make the industry more sustainable. Discover all entries here.