Steinert Magnetic Separator Procurement: 7 Steps to Get It Right When the Clock Is Ticking

This Checklist Is for the Person With No Time

If you're reading this, you probably have a separation line underperforming, a new project behind schedule, or a procurement deadline that's already slipped. This is the checklist I use when I coordinate rapid equipment orders—or when someone asks me to rescue one after it goes sideways.

Seven steps. Follow them in order. Skip the ones that seem like they slow you down, and you'll create exactly the kind of problem this checklist is meant to prevent.

A quick note before we start. “Steinert” means different things in different industries. In medicine, miotonica de Steinert refers to type 1 myotonic dystrophy. Among wine professionals, Alsace Grand Cru Steinert is a recognized vineyard in Alsace. For anyone in mining, recycling, or bulk material processing, Steinert is the German machinery manufacturer behind magnetic drums, overhead belt magnets, and sensor-based sorting systems. This article is about the equipment. If you came here researching the disease or the grand cru, bookmark this page for later—this one's not for you.

Step 1: Write Down Your Feed Specifications

Before you pick up the phone, write down:

• Material type (ore, scrap, flake, granulate, e-waste…)
• Feeding method (vibratory feeder, conveyor belt, hopper?)
• Particle size range: minimum and maximum
• Moisture and oil content
• Target throughput, in tons per hour
• What's ferrous, what's non-ferrous, what's “middlings” or attached particles

This list looks basic. But in my experience, at least half of all rushed quotation requests I've seen miss at least two items. I had a client in March 2024 who called at 2 PM on a Thursday needing a quote by Monday. The application: separating copper from a shredded cable stockpile.

Fine. Then I asked the basic questions. Throughput? “About 10 tons per day.” Particle size? “You know, mixed.” Moisture? “Should be dry.” They were surprised I was still asking questions since they'd already received two other quotes that day.

Those two other quotes were worthless, by the way. You can't size a magnetic separator without knowing the particle size distribution that deeply affects recovery. It's like asking for a truck quote without a destination. Take the 45 minutes to do the spec sheet properly.

Checkpoint: If you can't send one page that summarizes your feed, throughput, and target output, you're not ready to talk to vendors.

Step 2: Measure What's Actually Difficult About Your Material

Most people think about “magnetic material” as simply iron. But your stream almost certainly contains more than pure ferrous.

Stainless steel, for example, can be ferritic (weakly magnetic) or austenitic (basically non-magnetic). Wires and mesh can wrap around a magnetic drum and damage the shell. Flaky aluminum behaves differently from granular aluminum when fed into an eddy current separator. Fibers, dust, and moisture change how material flows on a conveyor.

Write down what your feed brings that is awkward. Then tell the vendor's engineer about it. I know it's tempting to hide the awkward parts because you're worried the equipment will get more expensive. But the hidden awkward parts don't disappear. They turn into downtime and lower recovery after the machine is installed.

From the outside, a rush order looks like “get the spec to the vendor and ask lead time.” The reality is the first pass only gets you a provisional configuration. The real engineering work starts when you explain the messy, non-ideal behavior of your particular material flow.

Step 3: Set Your Recovery and Purity Targets Before Comparing Quotes

Here's the step that nearly everyone in a hurry skips. If you don't define what success looks like, you can't compare vendor proposals on anything other than price. And price-based comparison is exactly how companies end up with the wrong equipment.

Define two numbers before you start the commercial discussion:

• Recovery rate: the percentage of target material you expect to capture
• Purity (or grade): the acceptable level of contamination in the output

These two values are typically in tension. High recovery usually means sacrificing a bit of purity, and high purity means you'll reject more material that should have been recovered. You have to decide what your downstream process and customer specifications require.

I've seen a company reject a solution at 97% recovery because a competitor promised 99.5%. They signed the purchase order at 30% higher budget, and the machine performed at 98.2% in the site acceptance test. The original machine would have been fine. Nobody defined the requirement before the quotes were compared.

Checkpoint: Write down your recovery and purity targets, and ask each vendor to confirm their equipment will meet them—in writing, in the proposal.

Step 4: Use the Steinert Practice Center for a Material Test

Steinert's practice center in Germany is set up to run customers' actual materials through their machines before purchase. People see this as a “try before you buy” marketing gesture. It is not.

It is a risk reduction exercise whose cost is a few weeks of delay in the earliest stage of the project.

Let me give you a real scenario. In 2023, I was coordinating an equipment package for an aluminum recycling line. The client needed a sorting system and the deadline was set by his end customer's commitment: 10 weeks from first contact to production. The vendor told us “standard configuration, no test needed.” We skipped the trial. The system was installed with three weeks of buffer, and it immediately became clear the recovery was about 82% instead of the quoted 95%. Why? The shredded feed material contained a high share of -5mm fines, and the sensor system was calibrated for larger particle sizes.

The fix took three weeks. We effectively lost all buffer and paid overtime rates for the retrofit crew. It would have taken one material-test day at the practice center to catch exactly that issue.

Checkpoint: ask your Steinert contact how long a material test would take and what it costs. If you refuse the test, you're accepting a risk you should quantify in money.

Step 5: Calculate Total Cost of Ownership (Not Just the Purchase Price)

Let's talk about money, because ultimately, this is where most decisions go right or wrong.

There was a time when I compared equipment quotes by looking at the bottom line of each bid. You look at a number: $350,000 vs. $380,000. So you choose the cheaper one, right? No.

I now build a simple total-cost-of-ownership model. It takes about an hour and includes:

• Purchase price (obviously)
• Transport, customs, import duties
• Site preparation: foundation, electrical supply, compressed air
• Installation and commissioning
• Forecasted downtime for the plant
• Spare parts, wear parts, service contracts
• Energy consumption
• Recovery and purity performance, converted into annual revenue
• The cost of late shipments (like penalties to your own end customers)

When you run the model, the picture often changes dramatically. A $30,000 price difference is trivial compared with a 2% recovery difference over a five-year life. For a 50-ton-per-hour feed, a 2% recovery change is roughly 40,000 tons of recovered material over 5 years. Depending on what you charge, that difference is somewhere between $200,000 and $2,000,000.

The cheapest quote is only worth choosing if the performance is the same. It's very rarely the same.

Step 6: Confirm the Delivery Promise—in Writing

A Steinert magnetic separator is a serious piece of industrial equipment. It is not something that ships tomorrow. And I've seen procurement people base a plan on an unofficial lead time that came up in casual conversation.

When the timeline matters, get the commitment in writing. Ask these specific questions:

• Does the lead time start on the order date or on the date you receive our down payment and approved drawings?
• What shipping method is assumed? Sea freight from Germany to, let's say, the US East Coast takes several weeks. Collecting at a port, customs clearance, and trucking to site adds more time.
• Is there a lateness penalty in your offer?
• When will the commissioning engineer be available, and is that included in the price?

In January 2025, there was a client who needed a sorter for an e-waste line under construction. The initial offer said “lead time 14 weeks.” We asked the questions above and found out that 14 weeks assumed: specs delivered by Day 1, down payment received within a week, a straight sea-freight route, and no customs inspection delays.

Realistically it was 19 to 21 weeks. The client had planned for 14. That mismatch is why the contingency exists in the first place. Professionals ask early and plan accordingly.

Checkpoint: The delivery promise is only as good as the written commitment. If you don't have it in the offer, you don't have it.

Step 7: Lock In Your Installation and Commissioning Sequence

The equipment arriving at your site doesn't mean the project is done. You need the site to be ready. Power supply at the correct voltage. Adequate lighting for maintenance. Crane or lifting equipment. Sheave alignment procedures. Safety barriers and signage, which, depending on your jurisdiction, must follow workplace safety regulations.

One of the most common causes of delay is as simple as it is maddening: the equipment is delivered, the commissioning engineer is booked, and the client hasn't completed the electrical connection. That was once our situation: five days of idle time with the machine wrapped in plastic and the commissioning engineer being paid to look at it. Not the vendor's fault. The client's electrical contractor lost the job in their planning system.

Checkpoint: Walk the site yourself 10 days before the machine is scheduled to arrive. Photograph the foundation, the power connection point, and the access route. Confirm that the commissioning engineer's hotel is booked. Be the person who checks twice.

What Not to Do (Four Rules)

I've seen enough rush procurement projects to offer four warnings. Take them seriously.

1. Don't assume “standard” exists. No two mineral or waste streams are identical. Standard configurations exist, but they are the starting point of the conversation, not the end.

2. Don't hide your real constraints. If you're already two months late and the deadline is fixed, the vendor would rather know early. Concealing it doesn't make it disappear—it makes you look bad later.

3. Don't let delivery lead time override everything else. An on-time machine that can't meet the recovery target is worth less than a slightly delayed one that will perform well.

4. Don't forget the 20% buffer. Every honest plan should include time for commissioning issues, weather delays, human error. I don't care how carefully you follow this checklist—things happen. Build the buffer, not as a sign of pessimism, but as a sign of experience.

This checklist won't make the impossible possible. It will make the possible less painful. That's exactly what matters when the clock is ticking.