Acknowledging the Results: Trust, Commitment, and Effort

Nucor Corporation is a new and very different type of steel company. Traditional steel companies smelt iron ore, coal, and limestone in blast furnaces to produce cast iron, which is then refined while still in molten form through the use of Bessemer converters to generate steel ingots, which in turn are rolled into steel sheets, plates, bars, and beams for eventual sale to industrial customers. Nucor avoids the blast furnace and Bessemer converter processes; instead this company melts scrap steel in electric arc furnaces, and then directly rolls the output into the needed sheets, plates, bars, and beams. It is a business model that is termed “mini-mill” because the plants are much smaller, with far lower capital investments, and are dispersed throughout the country, with far lower transportation costs for the incoming raw materials and the outgoing finished products. It is a business model that for years was exceedingly successful in the globally competitive steel industry. Company growth rates and profit percentages did level off following the financial services collapse of 2008 and during the subsequent market downturn in the national economy that seems now to just drag on and on, but throughout this awkward period of slow growth and near recession Nucor has been able to maintain a leadership position.