ABB big data platform advances process control and innovation in metals manufacture

Digital is the new frontier for process industries. Come with us to China and discover how swaths of data-based intel is being integrated and channeled for more profitable operations in the metals industry.

How can metals manufacturers differentiate their products and thrive in an environment where profit margins are threatened by a thousand cuts? Can decades of experience in metals processes be forged into new, quality products with a lower carbon footprint? What would a total step change in intelligent manufacturing look like?

These are questions that keep a steel manufacturer awake at night. In China, the world’s largest steel manufacturing country, which produces more than half the global output (around 54%) of steel, over capacity leads to the fiercest competition.

Based in Beijing, ABB’s Deng Bo, R&D Manager for the North Asian Metals Cluster, says there are only two ways to succeed in this economic environment: “One is to control your costs as much as possible to gain a little bit of a competitive advantage when facing the market challenge. Two, is to think about producing a new material, or to upgrade your products so that you are offering something exclusive – then you can charge a premium.”

Deng-Bo

Deng Bo, R&D Manager, North Asia Cluster, Metals, ABB Process Industries

The cicada effect

In some Asian cultures the cicada symbolizes rebirth, health, wealth and even happiness. It’s appropriate, then, that Deng Bo likens a recent breakthrough in steel innovation to the wing of a cicada.  Since the early 2020s hand-torn stainless steel, manufactured to a thinness of some 20 microns (around the same measure as a gossamer cicada wing) has achieved high demand for application in fields such as aerospace, and the manufacture of folding-screen mobile phones and portable solar cells. China’s Global Times describes it as “the crown jewel of the steel industry”, while China-based Gnee Stainless Steel focuses on the strength of its fine version, saying it “can be folded 200,000 times without deformation, without fracture”.

“You can imagine that the process control challenges for a product like this are huge,” says Deng Bo. But process control and integration of myriad data streams to ensure quality outcomes are the passions of this digital expert, who holds a Master's degree in automation engineering and has two decades of experience in industrial manufacturing. In addition to heading up R&D for the North Asian Metals Cluster, Deng Bo is also Global Product Manager for metals processing lines at ABB Process Industries – with a keen interest in bringing innovations to the highest performance levels in the real world.

He says, “New demands promote the development of new processes, and also raise the bar for control accuracy, stability and reliability.”

In response to new challenges faced by customers producing special steel products such as hand-torn stainless, ABB has launched many customized innovative solutions.

For example, the China-based ABB in Metals team developed an asymmetric dual motor control system to allow real-time, accurate tension control for metals, ranging from seven to 280 kiloNewtons. It can automatically switch between single and dual motor modes according to process requirements, ensuring accurate load distribution and dynamic load compensation for each motor.

First installed in 2020 as part of the electrification and control system at Ningbo Baoxin Stainless Steel Co. Ltd. (Baoxin) in China, it helps facilitate the production of ultra-thin, ultra-hard, ultra-flat, high-quality precision stainless steel for the automotive industry.

Whatever the customer’s vision for success…

Deng Bo says every metals manufacturer may have a different vision for future success incorporating one or more aims – from upgrading product quality, to reductions in carbon emissions; from new product development to effective equipment maintenance – but in all cases, digital technology can now deliver the greatest impact.

“You can reduce energy consumption and therefore carbon emissions by upgrading hardware, but in general, such hardware changes have already been implemented,” he says, to give an example.

In 2023, ABB released a smart manufacturing solution for the steel and non-ferrous metals industry in China. This intensive digital solution integrates advanced control solutions for application in metals manufacture, ABB Ability™ System 800xA distributed control system, and ABB big-data analytics. Altogether, the package helps customers achieve process control, process optimization, visualization and remote diagnosis functions, while continuously extracting value from data throughout the manufacturing lifecycle. Its combined digital control, also available with a 3D digital-twin overlay, enables the ultimate in efficiency gains, continuous production and reliable quality output – call it intelligent production. Plus it delivers insights that contribute to future-focused decision-making.
ABB-Ability™-System-800xA-distributed-control-system,-and-ABB-big-data-analytics-1

This intensive digital package integrates advanced control solutions for application in metals manufacture, the ABB Ability™ System 800xA distributed control system, and ABB big-data analytics.

Step-change digitization in action

In the case of Ningbo Baoxin’s new stainless steel strip production line, the 30,000 tons-per-annum project “was designed according to the concept of the smart factory”, says Deng Bo, and was delivered on a very tight schedule. That is, a team of 20 ABB engineers commissioned the new production line within six weeks.

It combines previously separate centers of production dispatch, logistics control, process equipment, security and the main operating rooms of each unit; and also encompasses ACS880 direct control drives, instrumentation, and vibration and temperature sensors which feed into System 800xA.

Among the benefits of this fully integrated system are minimization of variations in product thickness and the probability of breakage; which results in reduced equipment needs and power consumption, thereby lowering the overall cost of production.

Identify opportunities for growth and innovation

Digitalization also facilitates full understanding of existing processes, analyzing performance to discover the best and worst performing parameter combinations, and where the “opportunity gaps” lie. Here again, the digital record generated by fully integrated and monitored processes more quickly enables development of new processes needed to produce new products.

Deng Bo explains: “Developing new products or optimizing product processes is complex. First, technical personnel need to determine the basic process parameter range based on theoretical knowledge or lab experiments, then set different process parameters for testing in the factory, and, finally, collect and analyze experimental data.” He adds that the longer the production process for any product, the more data needs to be collected and analyzed. “In most cases, it’s difficult to collect and analyze data consistently, and sometimes there are information silos between processes, making it even more difficult to assess.” Moreover, analyzing process data also requires technical personnel to have testing and equipment capabilities which are in other domains.

“To make a proper judgment,” Deng Bo continues, “you need to align or assign all this data correctly, which is very, very difficult.” The process as it stands is time-consuming and inefficient. “But our system,” says Deng Bo, “can aggregate all the information necessary to describe the recipe, the result, and how it gets treated. You can make digital adjustments and check the outcomes, to create proper process parameters. It's a very innovative environment that facilitates such complex development or optimization processes.”
A-3D-digital-twin

A 3D digital twin provides operators with visualization of processes throughout the entire mill.

Pick your starting point for modular digitalization

Deng Bo emphasizes that “the beauty” of ABB’s advanced digital solution is that it can easily be tailored to different customer interests and aims. “Our digital offering has various modules, from equipment level up to production process, quality and energy consumption, which can be applied to a single mill or multiple mills.”

The scalable architecture allows customers to start at what they have identified as a crucial part of the process to be upgraded, and add modules as the need for greater digital insights and controls arise.

In 2021, Qingdao Special Steel Co. Ltd., which forms part of the Citic Special Steel Group, wanted to introduce the first digitally controlled manufacturing system for long products on two new high-speed wire rod mills at its Qingdao City facility, with the aim of refining the model for inclusion throughout the Citic group.

The System 800xA platform-based intelligent workplace solution allowed integration of four existing operations rooms into one centralized management and control center. This now facilitates greater collaboration and interaction and therefore higher operational efficiency across the mills in real time.

To enable offsite relocation of the centralized control facility, Qingdao Special Steel opted for a video monitoring system, integrated with ABB’s proven AI image recognition, a combination that provides abnormal-production status warnings interlocking with digital control logics. One outcome of the digital visual overview is minimization of cobbling along the mill line, which can cause unplanned shutdowns. Another is enhanced safety for operators who are now removed from the production floor.

Cross-layered data analysis at Qingdao Special Steel processes data collection, and production and product-oriented analysis. This analysis currently concentrates on facility KPIs and provides suggestions on how to optimize data set-up to improve productivity, quality and energy efficiency.

Creating a co-innovation space

“The vital first step in our role is to understand a customer’s environment and their specific pain points as a precursor to co-innovation and co-development,” says Deng Bo.

The new ABB digital solution can span day-to-day operations and settings, various departmental and process inputs and analysis of massive historical datasets, to bring customer-relevant aspects into focus. The central digital product, digital equipment and digital practice of the system can also access decades of metals experience in problem solving, equipment maintenance and process fine tuning which it has accumulated and learned from the daily practices of domain experts.
Qingdao-Special-Steel-Co.-Ltd

ABB’s automation and digital solutions enable Qingdao Special Steel Co. Ltd. to minimize cobbling along its mill line, and enhance safety for operators – who are now removed from the production floor.

“A feature of the system that makes it easier to use in specific production lines and factories, is that customers can use the intelligent brain of the big-data analysis platform to consolidate and accumulate the experience of company experts, greatly reducing the time for new employees to explore optimization of process parameters and other links,” says Deng Bo.

This “intangible wealth” of experience is tapped using prescribed formats for recording the knowledge of existing employees. In an environment where many long-term employees are heading for retirement, it allows companies to achieve “twice the result with half the effort” by being able to build on a rich process inheritance rather than constantly reinventing solutions.

In this way, much of the brilliance, inventiveness and process development that went into, say, the production of ultra-fine stainless steel can ripple to inform metal’s next big, profitable thing.
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