Specialised Topic

Shaogang - CISDI’s new benchmark for intelligent steel manufacturing

CISDI is implementing the EPC-based construction for Shaogang’s Intelligent Centre, a benchmark of China’s steel intelligence levels.

Shaogang upstream-BF integrated intelligent control platform

Critical technologies:

-       Data centre and big data platform

-       AI-based math model

-       Integrated intelligent control

-       Big data-based production and dynamic optimisation of operation

-       Systematic optimisation and production consulting

-       Remote safety control

-       Machine vision

Results and returns:

-       Reducing the 315 staff at the on-site central control room to 190 for the integrated intelligent control centre

-       Increasing productivity by around 30 per cent

-       Innovations in organisation, flow and management creating an annual economic benefit of $2.24 million USD

-       Creating an annual economic benefit of $9.72 million USD from a cost saving of $1.5 USD per tonne of hot metal

Shaogang’s Intelligent Centre was built turn-key by CISDI.

The large-scale centralised control centre features a number of firsts for the Chinese metallurgical industry, from trans-procedure, cross-area and long-distance (over 5km) endless coordination to big data decision-making.

A host of intelligent and big data technologies have been applied and the centre is seeing unprecedented safety levels, coordination and high efficiency.

It is able to perform intelligent sensing, intelligent analysis, prediction and decision-making for plant-wide production and operations and will be capable of achieving the most advanced steel manufacturing levels in China.

CISDI’s years of engineering and production expertise have gone into the project. Along with Shaogang, it amassed the steelworks’ original internal intelligent manufacturing data and integrated it into the control and decision-making systems for ironmaking and energy media.

The centre was initiated in last September and put into full use at the end of December 2018.

The Shaogang Intelligent Centre

Greater safety for workers - whether on-site or 5km away

The plant’s traditional operation room, pulpit and control room are located very close to the production site, making them high-risk areas.

Workers are exposed to hazards when detecting and solving problems on-site and need greater protection from the 3Ds – dirty, difficult and dangerous conditions.

A centralised centre which could control large-scale production from a distance was required.

Using its 60 years of electric and automation expertise, CISDI created a safe, reliable and stable operation system which features the four safety technologies – power supply, control, network and data. Video interlock technology sends alarms automatically to operators when an abnormality is detected.

Working areas reduced from 50 to 18: a transformation of management and organisation

A streamlined and highly-efficient organisational structure has been created for the management of Shaogang’s production. CISDI’s solution – individual plant managing multiple working areas – is a systematic design coordinating flows, organisation, management and technology and integrating posts of working areas to a matrix-style management.

The original 42 onsite central control rooms have been eradicated and 50 working areas have been reduced to 18.

An island layout at the Shaogang Intelligent Centre enables large-scale and long-distance centralised control

Big data centre is a Chinese first

Shaogang’s Intelligent Centre is the Chinese steel industry’s first hyper-converged big data centre, acquiring 350,000 data zoomed from original mere 10,000 data.

The 350,000 data can support six software applications, 100 intelligent models and 150-sheet automatic reports.

The centre features a CISDI-developed ironmaking integrated intelligent control platform for data and results interconnectivity.

It acts as the steelworks’ brain, functioning as an intelligent monitor and alarm, carrying out analysis and diagnosis and optimised decision-making.

The CISDI-developed intelligent energy media system, which integrates closely with production for simulating gas flows and tracking gas sources, has also been applied.

CISDI team is now dedicated to enabling energy media’s intelligent control and developing master-procedure-based energy supply-consumption prediction model, energy intelligent analysis and optimisation model.

The ultimate goal is to realise autonomous balance, check, organisation and optimisation.

The intelligent energy media system is, in the final analysis, expected to meet the steelworks’ higher and systematic energy conservation needs.

The intelligence liberates people from repetitive and laborious activities and the production and management technology enables them to work more creatively.

The CISDI-developed integrated intelligent control platform in operation

One central control room means endless coordination and greater efficiency

Shaogang now has only one centralised control centre, which incorporates 42 previous central control rooms.

Endless coordination is now achievable. The blast furnace-centred ironmaking integrated coordination and mass coordination between ironmaking and energy media have been formed. The traditional boundaries that exist in a steelworks’ areas and procedures have been eliminated. Such coordination makes management and production more efficient.

The platform indicating the functioning Shaogang BF-centred ironmaking integrated coordination

Coordination - the results

i) Coordinated control is realised between triple-flow-coupled energy and master procedure (the triple flows are mass, energy flows and logistics).

Ironmaking production involves around 90 per cent of secondary energy conversion while consuming around 40%. Data show a high-degree coordination and interaction between ironmaking production and energy media system. 

CISDI’s energy-master procedure integrated control system intensifies functions by mass-energy gradation, information fusion and coordinated control. It has created a new method for steel companies to improve systematic energy efficiency by fusing energy management and master procedure. 

2) Efficiencies have been enhanced – a 30 per cent increase in the efficiency of ironmaking personnel, and a 60 per cent increase in control system operational efficiency.

Operators monitoring the site production screens at the centralised control center

CISDI’s team at work at Shaogang’s Intelligent Centre

Fact file:

Shaogang is part of China’s Baowu Group and is located in the Guangdong province. It is China’s most important shipbuilding plate producer and is a high-tech steel production enterprise.

Developed over 40 years, the Shaogang plant can produce six million tonnes of steel a year and is China’s main supplier of plates, wire rods and bars.