qcom minimill steel industry electric arc furnaces nucor

$QCOM The minimill idea comes from the steel industry. Traditional steel mills melt raw iron ore in big furnaces, need tons of money, thousands of workers, and are built far from where people buy steel. Think U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh. Minimills melt scrap steel in electric arc furnaces (EAF). They're smaller, cheaper to build, closer to where demand is, more flexible, and cost less per ton. Nucor is the classic example. The key point Christensen found: 1. Minimills began at the bottom, making cheap rebar and low-grade steel that big mills ignored 2. Big mills were happy to hand over that low-margin work 3. Minimills kept improving and moving up the market — sheet steel, beams — until they took over the whole industry from below 4. By 2014, Nucor was the top steel producer in the U.S.; most big mills were bankrupt https://www.majesticsteel.com/mini-mills-steel/