South Korea’s POSCO
to supply unmanned cranes to Chinese Shougang Jingtang Iron & Steel
Advanced manufacturing technologies – often
synonymous with automation – are a defining feature of Industry 4.0. Smart
factories run on process technologies that help boost productivity and
responsiveness to customers by making it possible for steel plants to quickly
and easily modify and adjust production processes according to customer
requirements. As a result, plants can generate a greater diversity of products
from the production processes.
The age of smart
factories
Days after Chinese steel behemoth Baosteel
employed four robots to work in simultaneity at its Baoshan Steel Works, South
Korea’s POSCO ICT, a subsidiary of steel giant POSCO, unveiled its plan to
supply unmanned cranes and crane control systems to Shougang Jingtang United
Iron & Steel (SJUIS) – a continuous casting and hot rolling mill in China’s
Hebei province.
The steel mill’s annual production capacity is
pegged at 9.7 MnT and the products being churned out since 2009 include
automotive grade steel, pipe steel and surface treated steel sheets.
Automate to excel
POSCO’s novel technology will enable SJUIS to
automate the logistics system and set up an unmanned factory thereby laying the
foundation for a smart factory that collects, analyzes and predicts data
generated at production and logistics sites. It will now be possible for the
steelmaker to automatically control facilities based on data collected. In July
2017, POSCO ICT had supplied an unmanned crane system for a waterfront
warehouse of SJUIS.
Global majors such as Schneider in Germany and
Danieli in Italy participated in the auction, but POSCO ICT was awarded the
project in recognition of its technological prowess. The IT and engineering
service provider designs and maintains IT systems usually for its parent
company and other steel mills.
China leapfrogging
towards smart factories
Considering the keen interest of Chinese
steelmakers in building smart factories, the country’s communist government
announced a long-term plan in 2015 to restructure the iron and steel sector
with the objective of dealing with supply gluts and improving competitiveness.
POSCO ICT provided consulting services to
establish a master plan for building the Rizhao Steel production base in China.
In 2015, the Hebei Steel Group inked a
technical cooperation agreement with POSCO ICT so that the latter could
diagnose the processing systems of Tangshan Iron & Steel – one of Hebei’s
subsidiaries – and establish smart factory systems before spreading them to 15
other subsidiaries.
Recently, POSCO ICT set up automatic cranes in
Tangshan Iron & Steel and is scheduled to provide techniques so that
similar cranes can be built for the entire Hebei Steel Group. The engineering
service provider has initiated another project for real-time production
monitoring and control.
What big next?
Therefore, innovation-driven steel production
is increasingly relying on automation which is, undeniably, the next big thing
as it promises to usher in a period of fast-paced growth and ensure an enviable
level of efficiency in production. Want to delve deep into the future prospects
of automation and its ability to revolutionize steelmaking? If your answer is
‘yes’, do be a part of Steel Via – the global innovations forum – where leading
experts from across the globe will converge to share ideas and strategies.
Source: www.steelmint.com