I have been reading and writing about Clayton Christensen’s work for 3 months now and there’s definitely no bottom to it. By itself, his theory of disruptive innovation has an unbelievably profound depth. But, moreover, there are infinite concepts that surround the theory and Clayton’s thinking that also bring layers and layers of knowledge. Among these, we find ‘business models’, ‘interdependence vs modularity’, ‘how industries evolve’, and many more we’ll be covering accordingly.
I have no idea why someone should invest in such industries. Sure also today so called "safe harbours" can or will be disrupted some day, but steel never had any moat, high competition, low margins, cyclical...
I haven't had any thoughts on that. I only remember many great investors saying they would never invest in businesses that produce commodities. The lack of pricing power is for sure a destroyer of potential value created.
Hi Giuliano, great article brings back many memories. Two of my first Businesses were in the Steel Industry, one was United Steel: that was in Structural Steel Fabrication and Erection up to 300 Tonnes.
SteelCorp: Was in the Steel Reinforcing Industry and was the First company in Queensland, Australia to incorporate Tapered Threading on Reo Bars for the Construction industry.
In the old days when high rise went up, we used to weld the reo bars end to end, so builders could lay concrete and to go to the next floor as the building rose, or just use lap splicing. It was very slow, labor intensive, we had to drag a welder every where etc.
There was a better way.
I invested in and worked on a new technology in the 80's called Tapered Threading, that allowed me to use a machine, imagine a mobile Plumbers Pipe Threading Machine, about that size.
I would put a course tapered thread on each end of the reo bar, diameter sizes from 12mm up to 50mm Diameter. Small diameter size threading at beginning of reo and widening out the diameter as I got further down the reo bar. The length of the tapered thread was about 50mm to 100mm depending on reo size.
A standard parallel thread is not strong enough to hold the reo bars because they can be in tension or compression, so had to redistribute the weight into not only the threads, but also the diameter of the reo bar and the female Coupler/Collar because of it's strength.
Then the spliced reo bars can behave as continuous lengths of reinforcing steel bars by providing “full strength” in tension, compression and stress reversal applications. It also develops higher tensile strength than lap splicing and provides full load transfer with the slimmest and shortest coupler possible.
The Female Couplers which also had 2 internal tapered threads, one at each end of the coupler and meeting in the middle for inserting and turning the reo bar, and were made in machine shops. This joining system also allowed builders to join different diameter sizes of reo bar together, it was much stronger than side by side (lap splicing) much faster and had a longer life.
So thank you very much for the walk down memory lane.
Wow, what an experience man!!! Thank you an absolute lot for sharing. I'm very glad you could reconstruct your path. I unfortunately know very little of steel manufacturing, so I most-likely missed many details, but the process of how it's done is just very interesting. Thank you very much for sharing and take care!
I have no idea why someone should invest in such industries. Sure also today so called "safe harbours" can or will be disrupted some day, but steel never had any moat, high competition, low margins, cyclical...
I haven't had any thoughts on that. I only remember many great investors saying they would never invest in businesses that produce commodities. The lack of pricing power is for sure a destroyer of potential value created.
Hi Giuliano, great article brings back many memories. Two of my first Businesses were in the Steel Industry, one was United Steel: that was in Structural Steel Fabrication and Erection up to 300 Tonnes.
SteelCorp: Was in the Steel Reinforcing Industry and was the First company in Queensland, Australia to incorporate Tapered Threading on Reo Bars for the Construction industry.
In the old days when high rise went up, we used to weld the reo bars end to end, so builders could lay concrete and to go to the next floor as the building rose, or just use lap splicing. It was very slow, labor intensive, we had to drag a welder every where etc.
There was a better way.
I invested in and worked on a new technology in the 80's called Tapered Threading, that allowed me to use a machine, imagine a mobile Plumbers Pipe Threading Machine, about that size.
I would put a course tapered thread on each end of the reo bar, diameter sizes from 12mm up to 50mm Diameter. Small diameter size threading at beginning of reo and widening out the diameter as I got further down the reo bar. The length of the tapered thread was about 50mm to 100mm depending on reo size.
A standard parallel thread is not strong enough to hold the reo bars because they can be in tension or compression, so had to redistribute the weight into not only the threads, but also the diameter of the reo bar and the female Coupler/Collar because of it's strength.
Then the spliced reo bars can behave as continuous lengths of reinforcing steel bars by providing “full strength” in tension, compression and stress reversal applications. It also develops higher tensile strength than lap splicing and provides full load transfer with the slimmest and shortest coupler possible.
The Female Couplers which also had 2 internal tapered threads, one at each end of the coupler and meeting in the middle for inserting and turning the reo bar, and were made in machine shops. This joining system also allowed builders to join different diameter sizes of reo bar together, it was much stronger than side by side (lap splicing) much faster and had a longer life.
So thank you very much for the walk down memory lane.
all the best
Kev Borg
Kiwi
Wow, what an experience man!!! Thank you an absolute lot for sharing. I'm very glad you could reconstruct your path. I unfortunately know very little of steel manufacturing, so I most-likely missed many details, but the process of how it's done is just very interesting. Thank you very much for sharing and take care!
Thanks my friend! I was looking forward to the article...
Thank you for taking the time to read Ketan, I really appreciate that!