Copperweld continuous caster breakout

Hourly foreman vs. engineer dispute. Engineer overrides foreman's "but —" and forces a tap when no railroad car is in position. 200 tons of molten steel poured on the casting shop floor. Both lose jobs. Moral: respect the hourly employee's tacit knowledge.

I remember one of my classmates one summer worked for Copperweld Steel. Harvey came back and told the story that the foreman in the melt shop was an hourly employee — the kind of guy who maybe graduated from high school but he was making a lot of money. When I worked at Bethlehem Steel, the foreman in the melt shop was an hourly worker probably making forty, fifty thousand dollars a year. I was making about twenty thousand dollars a year as an engineer. The foreman had to turn out about 300 tons of steel every hour, he was responsible for it, he had about 30 years working in the steel industry, and he made more than almost all the college professionals — not as much as the plant manager.

Tom's undergraduate classmate witnesses an engineer ordering an operator (who knew the molds weren't in position) to tap 200 tons of steel onto the railroad tracks. Both fired; mill takes a week to clean up with oxyacetylene torches. Teaching points: management listening; common sense; how steel mills clean up large solidified spills.

Which reminds me of a story from when I was an undergraduate student. I never saw this myself but one of my classmates went off for his summer internship — I think it was Copperweld Steel, which probably doesn't exist anymore, and when you hear the story you'll understand why. We talked about ingot casting in a steel mill, and there is a moral to the story.