A smart hot-rolling plant has been created by CISDI at Pangang Steel Vanadium Co in China’s Sichuan Province.

The 1,450mm hot strip rolling line is controlled online by the CISDigital Shuitu Cloud industrial internet platform.

The platform performs centralised operational and operations management control - a first for China’s steel sector.

Equipment operation and maintenance can be carried out in a more convenient and efficient manner, optimising production scheduling, cost and quality controls.

The smart line is now the most competitive of its kind in Southwest China. It is achieving the region’s highest figures for smart production, quality, safety and environmental protection, cost and performance.

By combining its specialist knowledge of the hot rolling sector with its industrial internet, cloud computing, big data and 5G expertise, CISDI was able to build the production line’s big data platform, hot rolling’s integrated control system, a centralised control centre and a centralised ops management room.

Based on the platform and focusing on quality control, efficiency and operational improvements, CISDI created more than 100 smart APPs for production, performance, quality control, equipment, cost, safety and environmental protection.

The hot rolling line has already been able to operate with “one-touch” at the centre, and has run stably and continuously for 24 hours per day.

Online and remote monitoring, as well as centralised operations management at the centralised control room, has been implemented for all of the main process equipment and 80 per cent of the process utilities.

Smart APPs on a digital board display real-time monitoring, evaluation and analysis of the production line, products, energy consumption and costs for optimisations.

These platform-based solutions help achieve lean production management and digital values.

Quality focused

A digital twin is created for each individual coil. The digital twin comprises all the necessary production data for each coil, including all dimensional data, technology, control and process quality, energy consumption, environmental data and health and safety information.

It fulfils the four-stage Plan-Do-Check-Act methodology for continuous improvement in quality control throughout process monitoring and control, technological compliance checking, product quality evaluation and full-process quality tracking and diagnosis.

Intelligent monitoring and measuring equipment is implemented by the use of machine vision and image AI processing tech. It enables automatic measurement and intelligent identification by implementing automatic recognition of the slab code, roughing mill and camber detection, flying shear cutting identification, coil alignment and its end defect measurement, and automatic coil code identification.

Errors which can occur during manual identification are eradicated and measurement accuracy is enhanced.

The rolling line can be operated with a smaller workforce and a higher standard of product is produced.

Efficiency focused

A system coordinating smart decision-making, performance at post and production has been built. It results in a greater overall line efficiency and optimised posts.

A 3D visualised smart control map is generated by applying digital twin tech, showing production piece rate (tempo), equipment status, quality trend, energy consumption indicator and logistics and inventory.

The map helps to achieve full-process, integrated control and holistic decision-making. It is relied on for more efficient coordination and control and it provides technical and managerial support for centralised control of the rolling line.

The performance at post function enables a digital performance assessment for shifts, learning about shift performances and transferring shift management from result-oriented to process-based.

A tailored report is automatically generated at the platform for indicating hot rolling production control’s business and post requests. It’s helpful for enhancing decision-making efficiency and management quality, which is indispensable for achieving an intelligent management.

CISDI’s “Nudge plus” mobile office APP acts as a plant-wide work coordination tool, sending all procedural’ statistics and abnormalities to the mobile phones of authorised staff via the 5G system. It effectively avoids the production information from blocking, attenuation and distortion. While enhancing communication efficiency, it enables multi-post information sharing and coordination and achieves highest standard of mobile user experience.

Benefit focused

A factory-level digital energy and cost control system has been created for implementing refined statistics of energy consumption by procedure and unit. Multi-dimensional analysis is made on quantitative over-proof of energy single consumption and coil-based costs. An optimal reheating procedure/regulation is selected on the basis of energy consumption statistical analysis. It results in a reduced fuel consumption per tonne of slab and a continued optimisation of line costs per tonne of slab.

CISDI Information Tech Co was the demo’s founder, and will continue to support the line’s quality and efficiency. By optimising production and posts, CISDI is helping Pangang Steel and Vanadium to enhance the line’s value creation and market competitiveness.

The CISDI-built centralised control centre with CISDigital Shuitu Cloud industrial internet platform at Pangang Steel and Vanadium’s 1,450mm hot strip rolling line