(NEXTSENSE: Graz, Austria) -- Continuous monitoring of rolling and drawing mill production has become a critical factor in the steel industry. To keep costs for quality control at bay measurement expert NEXTSENSE developed an affordable profile measurement system, ATON Wire, applicable for long products with round cross-section, like wires, bars and tubes.

There is a vast array of applications for the ATON Wire in your steel mill and most of them are focused on optimizing costs for you. Monitoring dimensional accuracy over the entire coil length allows you to instantaneously inspect and deal with faulty products, thus increasing your product quality standards. Checking roll and die wear will make roll and die changes plannable. Using on-line measurement reduces the time for product changes. Eliminating sample cutting will reduce waste and therefore material costs. Furthermore, full documentation of the whole production process is ensured.

A hot topic of conversation for many B2B industrial companies is the talent and skills gap due to the generational shift in the workforce from baby boomers to millennials. According to Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, “Too many employers are sleepwalking toward a significant skills problem that risks derailing their business strategy if not addressed. Not enough organizations are thinking strategically about workforce planning or even enough about the make-up of their workforce.”

Generational skills gap causing a quality gap

Recruiting and retaining millennials for sales teams is often cited as a primary concern. As baby boomers retire and exit the workforce, decades of quality experience, product, and market knowledge leave as well. Loss of quality is often the impact of this workforce transition on sales teams.