On December 7, 1986, F.

Kenneth Iverson, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO)

of Nucor Corporation, awaited a delegation from SMS Schloemann-Siemag, a leading
West German supplier of steelmaking equipment, at his company’s headquarters in
Charlotte, North Carolina. Iverson had to decide whether to commit Nucor to a new
steel mill that would commercialize thinslab casting technology developed by SMS.
Preliminary estimates indicated that the mill would cost $280 million, and that
start-up expenses and working capital of $30 million each would push the total cost
to $340 million, or nearly as much as Nucor’s net worth. Successful…show more
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A significant percentage of the steel sold to service centers found its way to end-
users in the automotive sector and the appliance and equipment industries. Taken
together, these three customer groups accounted for half of total domestic
shipments and three-quarters of the shipments of flat sheet. Service centers
emphasized the most basic form of flat sheet, hot-rolled sheet, whereas the others’
direct purchases were weighted toward cold-rolled and coated sheet that had been
subjected to further primary processing. Construction accounted