SIC 3316 Cold Finishing of Steel Shapes
SIC 3316
This industry covers establishments primarily engaged in cold-rolling steel sheets and strip from purchased hot-rolled sheets; cold-drawing steel bars and steel shapes from purchased hot-rolled steel bars; and producing other cold finished steel. Establishments primarily engaged in the production of steel, including hot-rolled steel sheets that are then cold-rolled are classified in SIC 3312: Blast Furnaces and Steel Mills.
331221
Cold-Rolled Steel Shape Manufacturing
The demand for cold finished steel comes primarily from the automotive, aerospace, construction, housing, and home appliance industries.
Price increases dominated the news in the late 1990s for this industry. The price of the source, sheet steel slabs, peaked in early 1998 at $265 per ton, then plummeted to $150 by the end of 1998, and spent 1999 climbing back up to the $200 mark, with optimistic projections calling for a price of $250 per ton by early 2000. Accordingly, industry producers steadily increased the prices they charged for the end products, hot- and cold-rolled sheets and coated sheets. Industry producers attributed the hikes to the tight market. And industry analysts further elaborated by pointing out that strong demand, continued low inventories, and increasing backlogs led to reduced imports, as European shortfalls started eating up excess stocks of Asian steel.
The value of industry shipments fluctuated as well during the late 1990s, plunging from $6.26 billion in 1998 to $4.79 billion in 1999, before rebounding to $5.09 billion in 2000. Industry employment in 2000 totaled 12,852 workers, compared to 14,319 workers in 1998.
In 2002, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 146 establishments employing 11,437 workers. The total value of shipments stood at $4.68 billion, up from $4.40 billion in 2001. By 2004, the total number of employees increased to 15,315 generating revenues of $8.5 billion. The largest sector of the industry was cold finishing of steel shapes, controlling more than 55 percent of the market and generating $1.8 billion in sales. Bars, steel, and cold-finished steel represented more than 20 percent of the market, with $958.3 million in shipments. Strip and cold-rolled steel controlled only 7.8 percent of the market; however, their value of shipments generated $3.8 billion in sales. Cold-rolled strip or wire was valued at $1.3 billion in 2004. States with the majority of facilities were Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and California. Together, they shared about 38 percent of the market.
Cold-rolling is the process of rolling steel without first reheating it. This method produces a smooth steel surface that reduces thickness and enhances machinability. Cold-rolling gives steel the ability to be stretched and shaped without cracking and provides it with a bright finish. The three main product classes within the industry are steel sheet, steel strip, and steel bars.
Steel sheet and strip are both flat products that are generally less than 1/4 inch thick. Sheet is the wider of the two by 12 inches or more and is produced to less exact thickness than the strip. Steelmakers produce most sheet and strip in the form of large coils that the user can cut into pieces of any desired length. Much of the sheet and strip manufactured is used in automobile bodies, but thousands of other products also contain these forms of steel.
Steel companies make bars in many sizes and various shapes, including squares, circles, ovals, hexagons, and rectangles. Products made from steel bars include many precision-engineered components that power automobiles, trucks, tractors, hand tools, washing machines, and lawn mowers.
There were 187 establishments producing cold steel products in 1997, down from 219 in 1993. The largest concentration of firms by shipment value could be found in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The northeast and West Coast were second and third, respectively. The largest producing states in descending order of shipments were Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Connecticut, and New York.
The production of cold-finished steel became industrialized early in the twentieth century, prompted by the mass marketing of automobiles, household appliances, and industrial machinery. New and more efficient steel production methods ensued at a rapid pace.
During World War II, the American steel industry boomed, while other countries' steel manufacturing facilities sustained considerable damage. American firms dominated global steel markets during the post-war years, and, by 1960, American shipments of cold finished steel...
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