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Commissioning of SteelPlanner at two green field steelworks in ChinaIn 2007, a major steel producer (10Mt) was required to move hot strip and plate production from Beijing to two new sites in China. The deadline was April 2008 for a fully working order entry and steel planning system. The customer selected the well-proven SteelPlanner solution.The project was run successfully by AIS, together with its local partners and with the significant involvement of the customer’s IT group.

The relocated steelworks is based on two green field sites, a plate mill complex and a hot rolling

mill complex (see Figure 1). Construction of the plate mill complex started in May 2003, with the plate mill commencing rolling in October 2006, marking the successful link between iron and finished plate. The site comprises blast furnaces, three 150t converters, three argon stir stations, two ladle furnaces, RH, two continuous slab casters with integrated slab sub-dividing facilities, one 4.3m wide plate mill, heat treatment,

Author: Kurt Pressberger Advanced Information Systems (AIS) GmbH Co

r Fig 1 Hot-rolling mill complex in a rural setting

FORMING PROCESSES

shear complex and flame cutting device for thick plates. The main plate products include: high-strength ship, boiler, pressure vessel, bridge, mechanical engineering, pipeline, corrosion resistant, die, high-strength low-alloy and high-rise building grades. The high-strength ship plate has been certified with classification societies from nine countries and has also been certified with CE, a prerequisite for export to European countries.

The hot-rolling complex includes two 2,650m3 blast furnaces, three 210t converters, LF, RH and CAS ladle

a

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ProjEcT hiSToryAfter the first visit in November 2006 when the SteelPlanner Manufacturing Execution System (MES) was presented to about 300 company employees, it took some time to organise the training for system start-up. In March 2007, 45 employees from the plate mill, hot-strip mill and headquarters came to Austria for one month’s training. Between April and August 2007 the basics of both MES systems (master data, Chinese dialogs) were prepared in Austria, then from September 2007 both systems were installed in China. The testing for the interfaces for the two steel plants, plate mill and strip mill took about six weeks.

At the same time the enterprise resource planning system project (SAP) was started. At the end of September the communication between SAP and MES was running in a stable manner. Thousands of customer orders were downloaded for both plants and production orders were processed and workloads assigned to all plant resources.

From October 2007 to January 2008 the customer’s workforce became familiar with the system and in January 2008, the users of the system were trained. ‘Go live’ for both systems was planned for April 2008 and in the first week of April both systems controlled production. The acceptance contract was signed at the end of June. The customer IT group was supported with plug-ins to the SteelPlanner and developed dialogs and interfaces according to their specific needs. Report and certificate layouts, design and development as well as material tracking were successfully performed and integrated by the customer’s IT group.

SoLuTion` AIS SteelPlanner provides the two steelwork sites with

essentially the same solution:

refining furnace, two 2-strand continuous slab casters, two 8-strand billet casters, one 2,160mm wide semi-continuous hot-strip rolling mill, including auxiliary facilities, and one skin pass mill. Annual design production is approximately 4Mt of hot-rolled strip. The main products are: high-quality carbon structural, high-strength low-alloy, deep drawing, automobile, boiler, pressure vessel, ship, pipeline, dual- phase, multi-phase and interstitial-free grades.

ProjEcT goaLS` Flexible and optimal order processing (customer orders

with variable dimensions)` Optimisation of slab productivity (prioritisation of slab

dimensions)` Optimisation of large sales orders and transfer into

sales order item combinations with one production order (ship plate orders)

` Supervising and control of both steel plants (heat pacing system) with integration of actual production recording

` Integration of billets and slabs` Installation of a quality data model to reduce number

of steel grades` Sample planning to minimise samples` Integration of all resources with level 2 facilities

via interfaces and via dialogs where no interface is possible

` Online quality control with automated reaction on production process results based on rules

` Optimised calculation of coils to support same material dimensions within sales orders

` Over 80% hot charging is required because of the very small slab storage yard

r Fig 2 Steel plant controlled by heat pacing system r Fig 3 Steel plant coordinator without heat pacing system

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FORMING PROCESSES

` Management of customer orders from SAP (approximately 1,500 per month for the hot-rolling complex and 4,000 for the plate mill complex) including checking the order details for validation and elaborate production orders

` Optimisation of slab and billets due to the production limitations on two casters to gain full productivity

` Optimisation of slab and baby slab dimensions due to the production limitation on both slab casters (first and second cut) to maximise productivity

` Production order and capacity planning in connection with production recording informs the user at any time about the actual production situation at any resource in the plant. Production order generation is generic and based on rules and a quality data model including all chemical and mechanical requirements of standards organisations and customers

` Production scheduling produces optimum sequences for casters and mills to be able to deliver material in time to the customer

` At each process step, production and quality control support the user with automatic checks to achieve qualities according to standards and customer requests. Sample planning is based on rules and is performed for each material prior to possible sample cut to avoid unnecessary samples. Mechanical and chemical laboratories are fully integrated with SteelPlanner.

` A heat pacing system (see Figures 2 and 3) supports the user to handle the actual situation in a steel plant based on the schedules prepared by the user with the production scheduling module. Within this module the user can activate the next heats to be produced, control the actual situation (delays, maintenance, breakdowns, heats with analyses outside of the limits, pour back heats, etc) and adapt the planned heats accordingly. A special feature supports the user to control direct and hot charging

` Material management supports the user with all necessary features to handle and control materials

` Stockyard management and transport control are supported by the IT department based on SteelPlanner plug-ins

` Reports and certificates are developed by the customer based on views and special selects supported by SteelPlanner

` More than 90 interfaces to level 2 systems for 18 resources for the hot-rolling complex and 80 interfaces to level 2 systems for 11 resources for the plate mill complex were developed and installed in cooperation with Siemens China

` More than 600 users are assigned to the system and use more than 70 user roles accessing the SteelPlanner.More than 400 users are assigned to the system and use more than 90 user roles accessing the SteelPlanner.

BEnEfiTSThe benefits associated with such a project are:

Business` Consultancy on how to set up master data ` Keep order backlog and stocks small` Minimise sample taking and testing requirements` Eliminate licence and expensive IT support costs for

legacy systems` High grade of automation and optimisation` High-quality performance

Scheduling` Easy schedule creation (support of any number of rules

and constraints)` Semi-automatic by SteelPlanner standard module ` Consideration of coffin shape` Increased schedule length` Easy handling with interactive graphical views

Production` Supports high throughput ` Maximises capacity utilisation` Supports high production transparency` Supports high steel plant performance` Supports high hot charging percentage

ConCLuSionWith the commitment and expertise shown by all parties involved, the project was successfully commissioned on-time and the customer has been able to reach the desired goals. The two projects were implemented in parallel by the same project team, ensuring harmonisation in the implementation of two systems on two different sites.

With the SteelPlanner solution in place, the customer is now able to operate the plant with full flexibility to adapt it to the changing business environment as well as to modify the configuration according to business needs. SteelPlanner also provides reporting information, allowing a transparent view of the supply chain. MS

Kurt Pressberger is SteelPlanner consultant at Advanced Information Systems (AIS) GmbH Co, Leoben, Austria.

ConTACT: Kurt.pressberger@aisys.at

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