The voestalpine Rotec GmbH is a steel processing company, which produces high precision tubes and processes these. After delivering, the tubes have to be pickled. Therefore they have to pass several pickle baths. The last one produces a soap coating on the tubes surface. To prevent tubes from corroding they are dried in the drying station. For some tube dimensions, the drying is not accurate enough. For instance rusting can occur, or there may be problems in processing them. In order to get a better understanding of the drying process, the following measurements were made. The temperature and relative humidity as well as the air velocity and the amount of vapour in the drying station were detected on several spots. On the basis of this data a physical model was implemented to map the drying process, including a calculation of the amount of energy that could be saved by recycling the thermal energy. The aim was to develop some improvement suggestions and to rate them according to their economical benefit.