Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
¶ … United States Steel Industry and its current status on the world market. First, this paper will look at briefly the history of the Steel Industry. Second, this paper will provide an overview of how the industry is doing currently. Third, the paragraphs below will include a SWOT Assessment of the Steel Industry. This means that the industry's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and trends will be evaluated.
History of the Steel Industry
For as long as the United States has been a nation, steel has been an important industry. It began with iron mining in Virginia and Massachusetts and by the year 1700 the Americas were producing 2% of the world's iron. Demand grew and as a result so did production the a specific iron called pig iron. "In 1723 only fifteen tons were exported, all from Virginia and Maryland" (Gordon, 2004, par. 3). By the Revolutionary War, the United States was the producer of a seventh of the world's supply of iron. After the war, these numbers increased markedly as mills producing nails, hinges and plows were built in other states.
Up until the Civil War, the United States imported most of its steel. With the advent of steam technologies, this changed and opened a whole new market....
After the Civil War, the Steel Industry grew at astonishing speed as the nation's new economy expanded to become the world largest. During this time "steel production increased from 1.25 million to more than 10 million tons" (Gordon, 2004, par. 11). This growth continued through the World Wars but peaked in 1969 at 141,262,000 tons produced. The industry was facing competition abroad that could make more steel faster and incurring less expenses. By 1988, production was at 102,700,000 tons but the industry showed signs of weakness as it started to lose employees (Gordon, 2004, par. 15). United States Steel is once again competitive on the world market but the Steel Age has been replaced by that of the computer and microchip.
Overview of the Steel Industry
Vicki Smith (2005) writes, "Borders have blurred as the ever-changing Steel Industry goes global, with fewer major players duking it out" (par. 4). The global market has made it possible for American's to produce steel for a German company. Where the United States industry used to be the giant, a growing trend is to look abroad for better steel. Not jus European countries are on the forefront of the action. The United States Steel Industry is facing competition from China.…
Works Cited
Gordon, J.S. (2004). The Reader's Companion to American History: Iron and Steel Industry. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Smith, V. (2005, June 29). Steel Industry shrinks, brings profits, pain and pondering. The Miami Herald.com. Retrieved June 29, 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://
www.miami.com/mld.business.national/12014844.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp.
SWOT Analysis. Retrieved June 29, 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/SWOT/.
Industry The selected industry I am entering is the steel industry. This industry is a robust one which is involved in enormous monetary transactions every year, practically since the formula for rendering steel (the Bessemer process) was discovered by Thomas Bessemer (Misa, 1995). The steel industry closely coincides with the manufacturing industry, since steel is utilized in the manufacturing of a number of different products and services (Ruddick, 2016). Therefore, those
(Macdonagh-Dumler and Pebbles et al. 1-14) The Marquette Range, which consisted of huge deposits of high quality iron ore, was discovered in the year 1844, the operations were initiated in the year 1846. Other ranges that were opened by the year 1910, included the Menominee, Gogebic, Vermilion, Cuyuna, and, the Mesabi range in Minnesota, in the year 1892. (Macdonagh-Dumler and Pebbles et al. 1-14) In the year 1844 the first great
Three human resources management tactics that can help to address these issues are the fostering of corporate culture, the integration of new companies and JVs and lastly the path of promotion in the company. The corporate culture is essential to the success of a company like Nucor, which must attract talented individuals from throughout the industry in order to maintain its leadership position. In addition, in an industry focused on
HRM Issues One of the most important HRM issues that must be addressed is represented by the fact that the company does not use job descriptions. Although the practice of Nucor and the appreciation of both managers and employees have revealed that this system seems to be working, the situation must be changed in order to increase and to maintain efficiency. The company's motivational system is another area of interest in relation
Government Intervention in the Steel Industry The Bush administration announced the imposition of sweeping tariffs of up to 30% on steel imports to the United States for a period of 3 years in March 2002 purportedly to save the ailing steel industry from collapsing. Predictably, the action has invited particularly harsh criticism from the U.S. trade partners that have been directly affected by the tax, i.e., the European Union, Japan, and
In retrospect, the industry failed to respond appropriately by lobbying for federal restrictions on imported steel instead of recognizing the need to embrace a newer technology in the form of modern oxygen furnaces as an improvement over the open-hearth furnaces that replaced the Bessemer process almost a century earlier. Similarly, steel industry leaders like the infamous U.S. Steel Company continued to ignore the reality of decreased quality of North American