Key Corporation project will need active cooperation of all of us

We want to be the best and most successful among the world steel producers. Therefore, we have implemented many projects and took up challenges at U. S. Steel within the strategic plan, that help us to be permanently a step ahead of our competitors. Recently, our board of directors and leadership team approved a project that will help us take full advantage of the synergies and efficiencies that have accompanied our growth during the past seven years, while preparing our business and our workforce for the future.
That project involves the implementation of Oracle Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) at U. S. Steel Facilities around the world. What is ERP? At its core, ERP is about transforming the way companies conduct day-to-day company business. Best practice procedures and strategies are employed using a specific suite of software tools that allows business processes to be simplified, standardized, centralized and integrated across the company. Over the past two years, a team of U. S. Steel specialists, including many from our European operations, working with consultants experienced with ERP deployments have conducted a feasibility study to ensure that it would be a good fit for our company. The team then established a business case for moving ahead with an ERP and laid out a well defined plan for deployment in particular waves over approximately a six-year period. The initial wave of the project was approved by U. S. Steel Board of Directors in April 2007 allowing work to begin on the design, development and deployment of finance and procurement functions at our European locations and business planning in the U. S. Steel.
In addition, supporting components of the Human Resources module will be deployed in Serbia, Slovakia and North America. This first wave will also include the design and development of order management, operations and quality management functions in North America, but deployment is scheduled to take place in a future wave. Wave 1 is planned to run through the first quarter of 2009 with finance and procurement planned for May 2008 in Serbia and early 2009 in Slovakia. Obtained experience will position us to address our global requirements in these same areas. Everyone acknowledges that this will be a big change for our company and, therefore our leadership team has elected to dedicate highly skilled and experienced U. S. Steel employees to the ERP project. The Teams have just completed successfully the first round of testing through Proof of Concept (POC) sessions. The POC is used to test portions of the business processes that have been designed by reviewing various scenarios that people would encounter everyday in using the ebusiness suite to do their work. The ERP Team focused on finance, procurement and human resources is arriving in Europe in Mid August to review the Global Design and to ensure that local regulatory requirements are met.
There will be many meetings and workshops that will take place with European employees. Through these discussions the business processes will be validated, the plans for training and support on the new system will be defined and the ERP team will receive valuable feedback from the European business users. Once the project moves into the test and deploy activities, more U. S. Steel employees will become involved in testing and validating the design and applications. Implementation of goals and challenges of the key Corporation project requires active support of all U. S. Steel employees.

Steelmakers' new record

In July the slabs finishing and shipping team in the Slabs Production operation of the Steel Plants division beat last year's monthly record in shipping slabs for export. Last month we shipped out 8800 tons of slabs more than the best previous result, which was attained in August 2006. This new record is mainly thanks to the work done by the employees in the slabs finishing and shipping operation, but the credit is also shared by the Transport and Services divisions, the employee teams of GM Transport, GM Sales Planning and Production Logistics, and of the Executive Director Sales and Marketing.

Traffic check at USSK

Checking of drivers of vehicles using the roads inside the U. S. Steel Kosice works area was carried out last Friday, August 3rd, lasting just under twenty minutes and focusing on the use of safety belts and compliance with speed limits on the roads within the USSK works. According to Occupational Safety and Hygiene Manager Robert W. Kennedy, by carrying out this kind of occasional checking we are making an effort to reinforce employees' active approach to safety on the roads.

Kosice Summer of Sports 2007

The Kosice Summer of Sports program is attracting great interest among children. The sports grounds are permanently busy. There is interest not only in football, but also in hockeyball, tennis and table-tennis. During the first round of competitions, also including streetball, 33 teams took part, and there are 27 teams in the second round, but the expectation is that in the last round, beginning on August 15th, the participation will be the highest ever. The teams that have gained first placings are due to meet each other again on the pitches and courts. The matches for the Super Cup, which will be part of the Open Door Day at the Children's Fun Sports Area, take place on Wednesday, August 29th, starting at 9 am.