• Tata Steel and Caterpillar Steel Products alliance recognised for prestigious Annual Quality Improvement (AQI) award for significant supply chain improvements

• Local supply chains for Trackshoe Longbar product refined, generating global business efficiencies

Tata Steel is delighted to announce that, together with one of its principal clients, Caterpillar Steel Products, it has been shortlisted for Caterpillar Inc’s AQI award for the Trackshoe Longbar supply chain project.

As the leading supplier of track shoe sections for Caterpillar’s off-road construction equipment products, Tata Steel worked together with the manufacturer to improve upon existing local supply chains for greater global business efficiency. This drive for efficiency has resulted in Caterpillar Steel Products, in partnership with Tata Steel, winning the AQI award in the Remanufacturing and Components (RCD) division. The two partners’ project has also been submitted to the Caterpillar Executive Office to compete for the Corporate AQI award.

The AQI award is one of Caterpillar’s most prestigious honours. Winning projects are chosen on the basis of contributions towards business efficiency, high quality standards, collaboration, customer- and enterprise-related benefits and replicable qualities.

In the past, longer lead times for replacement track shoes led to greater stock and inventory levels. Tata Steel began looking at ways to reduce lead times and excess stock levels to ensure Caterpillar received replacement parts as and when they needed them. Through a number of key changes to the supply chain, Tata Steel, with the help of Caterpillar, managed to cut lead times to just five weeks.

Peter Gate, Global Account Manager for Caterpillar at Tata Steel, said: “We are delighted to have been working with Caterpillar on this project and are equally excited about having been able to add value to one of the world’s most recognised brands. The Trackshoe Longbar supply chain project shows our commitment to continuously improving not only our product offering, but our service offering to customers too, and we are extremely proud of our association with the project and the award. We are more than just a commodity supplier and we look forward to working on future projects with Caterpillar.”

About Tata Steel in Europe
The European operations of Tata Steel (formerly known as Corus) comprise Europe's second largest steel producer. With main steelmaking operations in the UK and the Netherlands, it supplies steel and related services to the construction, automotive, packaging, lifting and excavating and other demanding markets worldwide.

Tata Steel is one of the world’s top ten steel producers. The combined group has an aggregate crude steel capacity of more than 28 million tonnes and approximately 80,000 employees across four continents. Tata Steel’s Lifting & Excavating sector serves the CEME (Construction Earthmoving Equipment), cranes, mining and fork lift truck industries. Tata Steel manufactures track shoe products at its Skinningrove plant in north east England.