Costs-saving Program planning meeting held

On Thursday of last week, March 22nd 2007, the planning meeting for the U. S. Steel Kosice Costs-saving Program 2007 was held. The objectives of this event were to evaluate last year's costs-saving results and set out this year's goals, but also to present awards to the best teams and projects, and it was attended by Company top management as well as directors of individual divisions, plants and specialist units. Last year teams worked in all divisions and subsidiaries on a total of 300 projects, which were divided into three groups in line with the new system.
Group A comprises all projects which produce costs reductions in comparison with the preceding period. These made up the most - 52.5% - of the total number of active projects. Group B consists of projects producing increased revenues, and group C takes in the rest. The meeting also included presentation of awards for the best teams and costs-saving projects for the year 2006, handed over personally by Vice-president Operations Richard Veitch and Head of the Strategic Programs Implementation Section Eugen Lenorovic. The winners in the Organizational Units category were the Finishing Division team, second place was taken by Maintenance, and third place went to the Steel Plant team.

U. S. Steel Kosice changes from T-Mobile to Orange

U. S. Steel Kosice management has decided to change the Company's cellphone operator from T-Mobile to Orange. From 1st April, the numbers of cellphones used by U. S. Steel Kosice employees are changing in such a way that the prefix codes 902, 903 and 904 are becoming 917. The final six-figure numbers remain unchanged, which should make finding out a changed number that much easier. At the same time it is necessary to bear in mind that any number called from a Company phone will have to be entered in the form +421 xxx xxxxxx. The form used up till now (09xx xxxxxx) will not be usable more. In practice it is going to look like this: calls to a mobile network will have to be entered thus: +421 917 123456 (till now it was possible to get through by calling 0903 123456), and calls to fixed lines thus: +421 55 6123456 (previously 055 6123456).

USSK has Production Support HelpDesk

U. S. Steel Kosice has introduced another service to help people mainly in production operations. November of last year saw the trial run of the Production Support HelpDesk as a new point of first contact. Employees in divisions and plants can lodge their requests here for maintenance of buildings and outdoor zones, among many other things. This service is similar to the Information Technology HelpDesk, but the Production Support HelpDesk at present covers these areas: repair of roofs and buildings, maintenance of outdoor zones, grass-cutting and bush-trimming; within production operations themselves, repair of weighing machines, technical consultancy concerning maintenance of cranes, electrical and mechanical equipment, electrical fire warning systems, CO monitoring, metrological services and heat-exchanger units. Further services are being prepared in other fields of repair capacity. Requests are registered on phone line 3-4111.

HC Kosice players in sight of the finals

Saturday's sixth semi-final play-off match between Trencin and Kosice, which the Trencin soldiers won 4:2, was the decider that sent Trencin on into the finals against Slovan Bratislava. That means that for the fourth time in a row the Kosice team has been eliminated in the same round, as in 2004 they were put out in the semi-finals by the ultimate champions Dukla Trencin, a year later they became a notch on Zvolen's shield, and last year it was Poprad who knocked them out. The only consolation for the HC Kosice players is that they won the group phase of the championships, and even though the 2006-2007 season is not actually over yet, in the final ranking they have certainly taken bronze position.

Untraditional ice-hockey game

Last Thursday, March 22nd, the Steel Arena was the venue for an untraditional ice-hockey match between the teams called Kosice Super Stars and Bohemia Steelers. This was a meeting of employees, U. S. Steel Kosice sales staff on one side against their customers in various steel-trading firms in the Czech Republic on the other. The local squad for this game was bolstered by Kosice Hockey Club President Lubomir Veme, who was also successful in scoring goals. This duel on the ice was the sixth in the series of exchange matches, and this time the Kosice Super Stars beat the Bohemian Steelers convincingly 8:3 (1:1, 5:2, 2:0). Goal scorers for the local team were Lang 3, Veme 2, Udodik, Bolf and Jesensky, and for the guests two goals were scored by Puchar and one by Masin. Starting in 2003 this series of exchange matches between these two rivals has gone Kosice's way, and they are leading 4-2 on aggregate.