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How can the EU promote the digital transformation of steel?

“The concept of digitalization has been widely disseminated in the era of Industry 4.0. In particular, the European Union issued the ‘New Industrial Strategy for Europe’ in March 2020, which defines the future vision of the new industrial strategy for Europe: a globally competitive and world-leading industry, an industry that paves the way for climate neutrality, and an industry that shapes Europe’s digital future. Digital transformation is also a key part of the EU’s Green New Deal.” On February 18th, at 9:30 central time in Italy (16:30 Beijing time), Liu Xiandong, Director of China Baowu European R&D Center, held a discussion on AI robot and auto parts manufacturing application hosted by China Baowu European R&D Center and hosted by Baosteel Metal Italy Baomac. The main challenges and development status of digital transformation of steel industry in European Union are introduced in detail, and the application prospect of robot is briefly analyzed.
Look at three categories of projects from the “Four Dimensions” challenge
Liu Xiandong said that the digital transformation of the EU is currently facing challenges from four dimensions: vertical integration, horizontal integration, life cycle integration and horizontal integration. Among them, vertical integration, that is, from sensors to ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems, classic automation level system integration; Horizontal integration, that is, system integration in the whole production chain; Life cycle integration, that is, the integration of the entire plant life cycle from basic engineering to decommissioning; Horizontal integration is based on decisions between steel production chains, taking into account technical, economic and environmental considerations.
According to him, in order to actively cope with the challenges of the above four dimensions, the current digital transformation projects of the steel industry in the European Union are mainly divided into three categories.
The first category is digital research activities and technology enabling development projects, including the Internet of Things, big data and cloud computing, self-organized production, production line simulation, intelligent supply chain networks, vertical and horizontal integration, etc.
The second category is projects funded by the Coal and Steel Research Fund, in which the Steel Research Center of the German Iron and Steel Association, Sant’Anna, ThyssenKrupp (hereinafter referred to as Thyssen), ArcelorMittal (hereinafter referred to as Ammi), Tata Steel, Gerdow, Voestalpine, etc., are the main participants in such projects.
The third category is other EU funding programs for the digital transformation and low-carbon technology research and development of the steel industry, such as the Seventh Framework Program and the European Horizon Program.
The process of “intelligent manufacturing” of steel in EU from key enterprises
Liu Xiandong said that the EU steel industry has carried out a number of research and development projects in the field of digitalization. A growing number of European steel companies, including Amie, Thyssen and Tata Steel, are taking part in the digital transformation.
The main measures taken by Ammi are the establishment of digital excellence centers, the application of industrial drones, the implementation of artificial intelligence, digital twin projects, etc. According to Liu Xiandong, Ammi is now establishing supporting digital centers of excellence at its production bases around the world to enable various new technologies to be applied to the actual production process more quickly. At the same time, the company has used drones for equipment maintenance operations and energy utilization tracking to improve the safety of equipment operations, minimize employee safety risks, and improve energy utilization and production efficiency. The company’s fully robotized tail-welding plants in the United States, Canada and Mexico have not only increased production and product quality, but also helped downstream customers achieve “scale-up” requirements.
Thyssen’s current focus on digital transformation projects include “conversations” between products and production processes, 3D factories, and “industrial data Spaces” to ensure data security. “At Thyssenilsenburg, camshaft steel products can ‘talk’ to the manufacturing process,” Liu said. This kind of “dialogue” can be realized mainly based on the interface with the Internet. Each camshaft steel product has its own ID. In the production process, all the information related to the manufacturing process is “input” through the Internet interface to give each product an “exclusive memory”, so as to establish an intelligent factory that can manage and learn by itself. Thyssen believes that this network of physical systems, which fuse material and data networks, is the future of industrial production.”
“Tata Steel’s long-term goal is to improve service quality and transparency by creating digital solutions to meet the requirements of the Industry 4.0 era, while advancing and leveraging digital technologies and big data analytics to improve processes, products and services.” Liu Xiandong introduced that Tata Steel’s digital transformation strategy is mainly divided into three parts, namely smart technology, smart connection and smart services. Among them, the smart service projects implemented by the company mainly include “dynamically meeting user needs” and “connecting customers with after-sales market”, the latter mainly provides instant technical support for customer service through virtual reality and artificial intelligence.
Further downstream, he said, Tata Steel had implemented a programme of “digital manufacturing development for the automotive industry”. One of the priorities of the project is to digitize the automotive value chain.


Post time: Mar-06-2023