Innovation

Innovating the Future of Steel

For more than a century, Cleveland-Cliffs (Cliffs) has dedicated its technical and engineering resources to anticipating our customers' ever-evolving needs. As a fully-integrated steel enterprise, creating innovative, high-value steel solutions is one of our company's strategic priorities -- shifting away from manufacturing commodity steel in favor of higher-margin, specialty products.

Today, we have a comprehensive portfolio of steel solutions to meet even the most challenging customer requirements. By inviting collaboration between our customers, research groups, and operations, we are generating innovative solutions to new use cases and enhancing our competitive advantage.

Research and Innovation Center (RIC)

The centerpiece of our research program is the Research and Innovation Center (RIC), a 135,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility in Middletown, Ohio, designed to be customer friendly and facilitate joint development projects. In addition to developing new products, the RIC hosts technical symposia and workshops on formability, corrosion, welding, and other topics that help customers make steel work better. With a culture focused on both innovation and collaboration, new products and processes are being developed more efficiently and are being launched faster.

Our products include next-generation advanced high-strength carbon and specialty steels to help automotive customers design lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles that maintain superior strength and safety performance.

Featured Innovative Materials

Cleveland-Cliffs continues to drive innovation today to produce the next generation of industry-changing grades of steel. Creating lightweight, strong, formable steel, we stay at the forefront of technology, pushing our customers to think bigger.

NEXMET® AHSS

THERMAK® 17 Stainless

THERMAK® 17

MOTOR-MAX™ Steels

ULTRALUME® PHS

ULTRALUME® Press Hardenable Steel and Press Quenched Steel

Applications and Advanced Engineering

Our Applications and Advanced Engineering groups work directly with customers to find material solutions that optimize performance and cost. Our carbon, stainless and electrical steel customers benefit from the expertise of Applications Engineering. Advanced Engineering engages our customers early in their design cycle to identify opportunities for the new generations of advanced high-strength steels.

Customer Technical Services

Our Customer Technical Support (CTS) team is dedicated to understanding customers' current and long-term requirements and translating those needs into product design. CTS also offers technical symposia and tours for customers interested in learning more about the steelmaking process.