Advanced Steel & Crane in Tulsa

Advanced Steel and Crane was founded in Tulsa in 1970 by Bill Pleasant. It serves more than 70 major utilities and rural cooperatives across the United States and Canada with transmission, sub-station steel structures and components.

“Our U.S. utility market is a very large entity,” says President Shyamal Ganguly. “Since everything is under private ownership—the utilities and the manufacturers—there is an enormous scope there. Utilities is one business where demand always grows. Therefore the utilities have to build assets to serve that growth and demand.”

In July 2012, Advanced Steel and Crane became part of the EMC Group, which has pioneered turnkey solutions for extra high-voltage power system infrastructures throughout the world for six decades. During this time they have made significant investments in their Tulsa operations, from adding facilities and equipment to process and quality improvements.

“One major operation at our Tulsa facility is the seam welding of the enormous poles,” Ganguly says. “So we looked into how we could bring in some kind of an automation, some kind of speeding up process.”

Advanced Steel and Crane turn to Pat Crane for assistance. Crane is a manufacturing extension agent with the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance. He is one of 17 MEAs working throughout the state to grow industry. Crane is sponsored locally by Central Technology Center and Meridian Technology Center.

Rajesh Krishnamurthy is OSU applications engineer working for the Manufacturing Alliance. He joined the effort at Advanced Steel and began to sketch out concepts.

“We just continued down that path,” Crane said. “In addition to the seam welder project, we helped them design and lay out a new building. Central Tech offered funds to support specialized training required for new machines. It turned into a really great partnership between all the different organizations around the state.”

Recently, Advanced Steel and Crane became ISO 1009 certified with the help of the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance, Moore Norman Technology Center and Central Technology Center.

“I wanted to have a more measurable approach and documents to support, which is what ISO 1009 is all about,” says Ganguly. “We got accredited and we now have a very strong process-oriented system here.”

As the United States begins to focus on the outdated electrical infrastructure throughout the nation, Advanced Steel and Crane has positioned itself within an industry that has great expectations for growth.

Recently, Advanced Steel & Crane has made significant investments in its Tulsa operations, from adding facilities and equipment to process and quality improvements.