United States

Business strategy

In the United States, our business strategy guides our decision making at every level. It is not enough just to perform well. We must consider the feedback we receive from our stakeholders and our impact on the larger community. This strategy emphasizes our ongoing commitment to sustainability, and from that our continued license to operate.

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Business strategy

Business strategy

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The following are our key strategic priorities:

World-class assets

In an ever-competitive industry, it is critical to ensure every facility is operating in the most efficient and cost-productive manner possible. In 2019, we realized the full benefits of the important strategic restructuring in our operations. This included the completion of the Indiana Harbor footprint asset optimization (idling the 84” hot strip mill, No. 2 steel producing, No. 1 aluminizing line and No. 5 galvanizing line), the idling of our Conshohocken plate rolling mill and Cleveland temper mill. During 2019, construction of the two latest generation walking beam furnaces at the Burns Harbor hot strip mill continued. This project will expand surface critical capability, improve product quality, reduce energy consumption and increase productivity. Project completion is expected in 2021.

Emphasizing cross-functional, cooperation-focused teams

Every individual working in the ArcelorMittal ecosystem is important to the long-term sustainability of our business. Increasing our capabilities and improving quality are critical as we try to reach new non-automotive customers, while continuing to service our existing automotive customers. In 2019, this was truly a cross-functional effort. Teams ranging from commercial, planning, strategy, operations, quality, logistics and communications contributed to this effort and ensured no disruption to our customers.

At Indiana Harbor No. 2 continuous galvanizing line and the Indiana Harbor East tandem mill, we recently completed an upgrade to improve our non-automotive coated offerings by providing lighter gauges, heavier coating weights, increased chem-treat options and improved flatness to our new coated customers. In addition, at the Burns Harbor plate mill, we began to offer an ultrasonic testing line for critical plate applications, including energy line pipe customers, wind tower manufacturers and other critical OEMs (original equipment manufacturers). The new line allows the plate to be tested more quickly and precisely, providing the OEMs with the critical data they require for their projects. On the automotive front in 2019, Indiana Harbor No. 3 continuous anneal line started to qualify their new in-line tension leveler with selected OEMs for improved flatness/ shape with advanced high-strength (AHSS) and ultra high-strength (UHSS) cold-rolled and electro-galvanized products. This project not only improves quality, but also reduces the need for outside processing, therefore decreasing costs and improving lead-time.

Creating high value-added products for our customers

ArcelorMittal’s United States business has long prided itself on the strength of our customer relationships. We recognize, though, that customers continually look for deeper collaboration and the creation of value-added products and solutions from their suppliers. ArcelorMittal is the largest producer of advanced high-strength steels in the world. In 2019, ArcelorMittal invested $301 million globally in research and development to drive innovation in product solutions. Value-added products include fully finished hot-roll and cold-roll, galvanized and other coated steels. Producing grades of steel no other steelmaker can produce will help insulate our U.S. business from the threat of imports over time, as well as improve our competitive advantage.

An example of investing in high value-added products in 2019 includes the gas jet cooling project upgrade at the Cleveland hot dip galvanize line (HDGL) for advanced high-strength galvannealed (GA) and hot dip galvanized (GI) products. This upgrade allows the Cleveland HDGL to make Complex Phase (CP) and Multi-Phase (MP) grades of AHSS GA/GI that our automotive customers require for lightweighting the vehicles, while providing superior steel strength to improve safety. Cross-functional teams ranging from commercial, operations, engineering, research, quality, planning, and strategy worked together to quickly upgrade the facility to be able to qualify and deliver these new parts to our customers on upcoming automotive platforms.

Technology-driven customer response capabilities

Our delivery performance is critical. We must meet the expectations of our customers and ensure we are strong partners in their business objectives. To that end, we transitioned to customer-centric delivery metrics as of January 1, 2018, which reflect how our customers measure our performance. Many new practices and process changes have been implemented and institutionalized throughout the organization to improve on-time in-full (OTIF) fulfillment of orders. This has contributed to meaningful improvement in customer confidence, and building transparency and trust has required a culture shift for our company. Progress and enhancements continue to be made across the company. Notable improvement was achieved in 2019. This is a new era at ArcelorMittal, and we will continue to strengthen our use of data and metrics to enhance customer satisfaction and, ultimately, increase volume opportunities for our company.

Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 and digitalization are here to stay and play a critical role in ArcelorMittal’s strategic direction. They are at the forefront of a towering wave of change that is rushing through the business world, drowning businesses unable or unwilling to keep up. We are embracing the fourth revolution and have already made beneficial changes that will affect how we manage our supply chain in the digital world, optimize our performance, and how we can serve our customers most effectively. This is evidenced by the implementation of new technologies and digitalization initiatives throughout the U.S., including new delivery analytics, data storage and transfer processes, and new customer portals.