The £1.8million cutting, profiling and beveling machine is able to precisely cut and shape safety-critical steel tubes used to make parts known as twist-beam axels used in many modern cars.

With the addition of the new equipment Tata Steel has already secured orders from important European car makers and will be able to better serve other automotive customers.

Sanne Kramer, Works Manager at the Zwijndrecht site, said “The equipment is unique in several ways - it is fully automated and it can cut many sizes of tubes.

“As well as cutting the equipment is also able to make several other cuts, notches and bevels. These help in the final manufacturing by customers. The machine also cleans, inspects and stacks the material before it is shipped.”

Coenraad Spaans, Tata Steel Tubes Operations Director, said: “This is a milestone project for our Tubes site in Zwijndrecht. The programme has taken three years to develop and deliver and involved the expertise and knowledge of our sales, procurement, engineering, production and technical teams who worked closely with the equipment maker to deliver on time and to specification.”

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For further information: Damien Brook on +44 (0)7818 588545 or damien.brook@tatasteeleurope.com

About Tata Steel’s European operations

Tata Steel is one of Europe's leading steel producers, with steelmaking in the Netherlands and the UK, and manufacturing plants across Europe. The company supplies high-quality steel products to the most demanding markets, including construction and infrastructure, automotive, packaging and engineering. Tata Steel works with customers to develop new steel products which give them a competitive edge. The Tata Steel group is among the top global steel companies with an annual crude steel capacity of 34 million tonnes. It is one of the world's most geographically-diversified steel producers, with operations and a commercial presence across the world. The group’s turnover (excluding its South East Asia operations) in the year ending 31 March 2020 was US $19.7 billion.