[ferro-alloys.com] Japanese coated sheet producer Yodogawa Steel Works announced Friday it has detected falsified inspection data for rolling mill rolls supplied to steel producers over the past five years.

The affected rolls were supplied to 23 producers of steel sheets and non-ferrous products and 24 producers of other products, the company said.

A Yodogawa official said the false hardness and chemical component data was detected during an internal audit in April.

The company launched an investigation in May and reported the result to its president in June, who ordered an audit of all rolls supplied over the past five years. Yodogawa provided a preliminary report of its actions to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry last Thursday.

The official said the false data was used when the rolls were outside of the specifications decided with a customer, but deemed by an engineer to have no quality issues.

"We have advised customers who received the rolls with falsified data and no safety or quality incidents have been reported, but customers may be still undertaking investigations," he said.

Yodogawa's rolling mill roll sales comprise about 3-4% of its total non-consolidated sales, the official said. It also makes building materials, exterior product rollers and gratings.

About 20% of its rolling mill rolls are for export and about 30% are reserved for captive flat steel production, he said.

Japanese machinery producer Kubota Corp announced September 12 that it had detected falsified inspection data for rolling mill rolls supplied to 85 customers globally between October 2013 and July 2018. No safety or quality incidents in customer production processes have been reported, it said at the time.

Kubota supplies about 35% of Japan's rolling mill roll market and 2-3% of the global market, S&P Global Platts reported earlier.

• [Editor:王可]