CISDI’s ‘brain power’ gets WISCO switched on to intelligent remote rolling

CISDI’s integrated centralised rolling centre for the WISCO group took centre stage at the Green and Intelligent Manufacturing Conference, staged recently by the Baowu Group.

WISCO becomes the first steel manufacturer in China to achieve stable, highly efficient and remote rolling.

WISCO’s integrated centralised rolling centre is divided into three zones – remote control, remote maintenance and a zone where its engineers work.

Its CISDI-supplied hot-rolling smart brain acquires and analyses tens of thousands of points of data at a high speed and in real-time.

The brain can conduct real-time monitoring and dynamic analysis of production quality, equipment status and workshop conditions and send out accurate information to support decision-making.

Greater efficiency and reduced staffing

WISCO’s 2,250mm hot strip rolling line is manned by three workers based at one operations desk.

The three rolling line workers share information and coordinate operations.

Previously, three separate operation rooms were needed for the roughing mill, finishing mill and coiler, with a total of seven employees required.

More than 80 intelligent features have been applied to WISCO’s high-speed, high-precision and high-efficiency hot rolling, including audio and video analysis, dynamic width control, camber and real-time performance assessment.

‘Informationised and intelligentised’ full-process production has created many benefits. Working conditions are now cleaner and safer and the reduction in manual input and human judgment has smoothed the production process and improved coil quality and production safety.

Smarter control: manual operation transformed to remote monitoring

Conventional manual operation has been transformed to remote monitoring.

The reheating furnace areas for WISCO’s 2,250mm and 1,580mm rolling lines now operate from one operations desk, manned by two workers.

Previously, six workers were needed across four operation rooms.

Discharge from the reheating furnace has been modernised. What was a manually-set fixed tempo is now an automatic, rolling-oriented adjustment, giving intelligent control of the piece-rate.

RHF intelligence controls the rolling tempo, automatic burning, automatic charge and discharge and maintains a protective electronic fence around high-risk areas.

Early warning of maintenance issues

Two workers based at the centre’s remote maintenance area analyse data displays for the rolling line water treatment plants.

A screen on the left shows plant status and a screen to the right displays water treatment status.

CISDI has arranged the quality automatic assessment system to coordinate with automatic equipment diagnosis and water volume automatic balancing for collecting critical quality and equipment information and for accurately sending pertinent information.

Maintenance workers will receive advance notification if any equipment needs to be changed or repaired. It enables dynamic, visualised, intelligent and more responsive maintenance.

Easier coordination via one command centre

The centre’s engineer working area is run from one command centre - following the philosophy of ‘making production simple’.

It enables multi-system coordination, improves organisation and optimises flow.

Coordinated management, 3D visualisation, digital coil warehousing and big data mining expertise generates comprehensive data acquisition, coordinated supporting, mobile/pocket factory, accurate information transmission and rolling status visualisation functions.

More than 30,000 collected points of data enable staff in operational, maintenance and managerial roles to swiftly address any anomalies.

When it comes to understanding site conditions, engineers no longer have to communicate by telephone, walkie-talkie, the wechat APP and face-to-face meetings.

3D visualisation enables them to see the full picture via a big screen and they can regulate the systems by monitoring and operating the control desk.

They can swiftly acquaint themselves with rolling line production, equipment and safety situations and then make decisions.

Through the mobile/pocket factory feature, engineers can send requests from their mobile phones. The request will be transmitted automatically by the system to all relevant staff.

Inside WISCO’s integrated centralised rolling centre, which was built by CISDI