LIBERTY Galati, the largest integrated steel producer in Romania, continues its strategy to upskill its team and increase production flexibility and profitability by launching a “Lean Green Belt 6 Sigma” training programme.

Aimed at improving the company’s competitiveness, operations and sustainability, the “Lean Green Belt 6 Sigma” programme will enable Galati’s teams to identify issues which could generate potential technical incidents, helping to more effectively resolve situations which could impact safety, productivity, costs and quality. Members of the Galati team successfully completed the first phase of the programme, “Lean Yellow Belt 6 Sigma”, last year and have already started to implement several important projects to improve and modernize the plant’s operations and the production area.

The Galati team is the first in the LIBERTY Steel Group to implement the Lean Green Belt 6 Sigma programme, which will be extended to other European units in the future. As the team acquire analytical skills, problem-solving skills and techniques to maximise asset utilisation, they will help the business achieve its goals, increase production sustainability, flexibility and profitability and deliver its GREENSTEEL transformation plans.

Prasanta Mishra, Executive Director of LIBERTY Galati, said, “As we move forward with our GREENSTEEL transformation plans and modernise our production operations, we are constantly running programmes and actions which aim to improve our team’s know how and prepare them for a modern, green and sustainable future. This training programme offers participants the analytical tools needed to describe and quantify potential safety, quality, productivity, cost and bottleneck situations in order to solve them in a sustainable way. I am very pleased that we can offer personal and professional development opportunities to our team, while continuing to deliver our business strategy and operational plans.”

The Lean Green Belt 6 Sigma training programme has a strong health and safety component, the company’s top priority, which complements LIBERTY Galati’s existing Safety Connect programme. As part of this initiative, all LIBERTY Galati employees participate in dedicated training which focuses on prevention, compliance, collaboration and the development of a culture where each employee is responsible for their own safety and the safety of others.

LIBERTY Galati’s strategy of increasing the flexibility and profitability of its production, as well as expanding its product portfolio, includes a series of investments in equipment. Following an investment of more than 40 million lei, the company has installed a state-of-the-art pipe coating line at its specialized unit LIBERTY Tubular Products Galati, which allows LIBERTY Galati to become the only regional provider of 100% in-house coated pipes from its own plates and highlights its commitment to provide end-to-end solution for its customers across Romania, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. The company is also preparing the installation of a new 150 million lei modern accelerated cooling unit at its Heavy Plate Mill. The technology will enable the company to address the most profitable market segments, increases department productivity, expands its value-added product portfolio and improves the quality of finished products for its customers in the offshore, shipbuilding, construction and pressure vessel markets.