Gerdau Saves $30,000 in Development Costs and Reduces Manual Work with Plex Process Flows

MILWAUKEE - June 9, 2026 - Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world's largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, today announced that Gerdau, a Brazil-based leading global steel producer, avoided an estimated $30,000 in development costs and significantly reduced manual quality-control work using Plex Process Flows, a low-code automation capability within the Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform™. The results highlight how manufacturers can unlock meaningful efficiency gains and strengthen quality control without relying on external development resources.

Managing production across multiple disconnected legacy systems had made it difficult for Gerdau's North American special steel division to maintain real-time visibility into orders and inventory, consolidate key performance indicators reporting across plants and build a scalable technology roadmap that evolves with new technologies and supports future automation initiatives.

Gerdau selected the Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform to modernize its operations and unify processes across its special steel division, gaining early benefits in reporting, order and inventory management and custom analytics through Plex's Structured Query Language environment. The most transformative step came with the adoption of Plex Process Flows, an automation feature within the smart manufacturing platform that enables teams to build sophisticated workflows without software development expertise.

"We can create these automation processes and scripts without having to develop or write any code," said Joseph DelPup, business analyst, Gerdau Special Steel. "It creates more opportunities for non-developers to get into automation creation."

Using Process Flows, Gerdau built a scheduled automation that scans newly completed bundles every 15 minutes and automatically places overweight containers on hold before shipment - reducing customer complaints and costly rework. Additional automations streamlined quality workflows, such as automatically updating container statuses for 10 to 30 bundles at a time, significantly reducing manual effort during each review cycle. The team also used Process Flows to replicate a work-request copying feature in-house, saving an estimated $30,000 in custom engineering costs.

"Plex Process Flows was designed to put automation capability directly in the hands of the people closest to the work, and Gerdau is a compelling example of what that looks like in practice," said Devin Burke, group product manager, Rockwell Automation. "Processes that once demanded constant manual attention now run continuously in the background, reducing human error and freeing teams to focus on higher-value improvements."

Gerdau's creative use of Plex Process Flows demonstrates how manufacturers can unlock meaningful efficiency gains and quality improvements with the right digital tools.

Read the full case study here. Learn more about the Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform here.

Published June 9, 2026

About Rockwell Automation

Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), is a global leader in industrial automation and digital transformation. We connect the imaginations of people with the potential of technology to expand what is humanly possible, making the world more productive and more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rockwell Automation employs approximately 26,000 problem solvers dedicated to our customers in more than 100 countries as of fiscal year end 2025. To learn more about how we are bringing the Connected Enterprise® to life across industrial enterprises, visit https://www.rockwellautomation.com.

About Plex

Plex, by Rockwell Automation, is a leader in cloud-delivered smart manufacturing solutions, empowering the world's manufacturers to make awesome products. Our platform gives manufacturers the ability to connect, automate, track, and analyze every aspect of their business to drive transformation. The Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform™ includes solutions for manufacturing execution (MES), ERP, quality, supply chain planning and management, asset performance management, production monitoring, process automation and analytics to connect people, systems, machines and supply chains, enabling them to lead with precision, efficiency and agility. To learn more, visit http://plex.rockwellautomation.com.

About Gerdau

With a history spanning more than 125 years, Gerdau is Brazil's largest steel producer and one of the leading producers of long steel and special steel in the world. In Brazil, Gerdau also produces iron ore for its own use, as well as flat steel. Guided by its purpose of empowering people who build the future, Gerdau's operations throughout the Americas employ more than 30,000 people. The largest recycler in Latin America, scrap is an important raw material for Gerdau, which uses it for around 70% of the steel it produces. Every year, Gerdau transforms 10 million tons of scrap into a variety of steel products. As a result of its sustainable production matrix, Gerdau currently has one of the industry's lowest average greenhouse gas emissions (CO₂e), amounting to half the global industry average. Gerdau's shares are listed on the São Paulo (B3) and New York (NYSE) stock exchanges.

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