Our Takes on the Industry's Latest
Slitting Strip for Tube Mills: Width, Edges and Scrap
A strip 0.030 inch narrower can save 25 to 30 pounds per slit coil. How strip width, edges, camber and mult planning decide scrap when you slit for tube.
LineSight·October 6, 2026
How Much Is One Point of Slitting Scrap Worth?
At 50,000 tons a year, one point of slitting scrap is 500 tons of steel bought at full price and sold back as scrap. How an owner can price it in dollars.
LineSight·October 6, 2026
What Does Slitting Software Mean for the Planner?
Slitting math has been studied since 1939, and no planner can search it all by hand. What planning software takes over, and what it still needs from you.
LineSight·October 6, 2026
Why Does HVAC Coil Work Create So Much Slitting Scrap?
HVAC coil arrives as many small lots across gauges, coatings and coil weights. A 12,000 lb uncoiler limit shows why planning across customers cuts scrap.
LineSight·October 6, 2026
What Does a Well-Run Slitting Operation Look Like?
A well-run slitting operation plans the whole order book before the shift, tracks scrap by cause every shift, ships on time and gets its planner home by 4.
LineSight·October 6, 2026
How Do You Reduce Slitting Scrap on Automotive Work?
PPAP can call for 18 elements, and a process change may need customer approval. How slitters cut scrap on automotive work while the plan obeys those rules.
LineSight·October 6, 2026
Why a Steel PO Breaks Generic AI Order Entry
Steel POs describe material instead of naming it, price by weight on a different basis and carry tolerances. Generic AI order entry misses all three.
LineSight·September 2, 2026
The Ten Touches Between a PO and a Release
A service center handles an order about ten times between PO and release. Most of that is retyping. Two decisions in the middle set the margin.
LineSight·September 2, 2026
What Is a Command Center for Metal Processing?
Service centers own software that records what they have and almost none that runs what they do. A command center is software built for the second job.
LineSight·September 2, 2026
Evaluating AI Tools: Three Questions for Service Centers
Every service center is being pitched AI. Three practical questions to tell the tools that hold up on your floor from the ones that only demo well.
LineSight·August 10, 2026
The Case for Domestic Steel - Part I: The Foundation
The case for domestic steel and American reindustrialization: why reshoring steel production is a strategic, economic, and national security necessity.
LineSight·July 3, 2026
The Other 65-Year-Old Running Your Slitting Line
The hardest math problem in metals turned 65 this year. So did a lot of the people who solve it by hand every morning. Only one of them is retiring.
LineSight·June 15, 2026
Why Your ERP Can't Plan a Slitting Line
An ERP remembers everything and decides nothing. On a slitting floor, the gap between those two jobs is where the margin goes.
LineSight·June 12, 2026
The 65-Year-Old Math Problem Running Your Slitting Line
A metal service center runs on decisions. The hardest one is made before the first coil is loaded.
LineSight·May 2, 2026
Pressure Points: What Metal Service Centers Are Up Against in 2026
The metal industry has always operated in an environment of thin margins and tight timelines.
LineSight·April 10, 2026
What Is a Metal Service Center and Why Does Efficiency Define the Business?
At LineSight we think about metal service centers more than most. Here is what we know.
LineSight·March 30, 2026