The world's largest steel manufacturer, ArcelorMittal, with its four production sites and 16 distribution centers in Germany alone, has spent hundreds of millions of euros on new blast furnaces, wire rod mills and rolling mills in recent years. The goals: To make work processes simpler and faster, increase quality, improve plant utilization, save costs, reduce the burden on the environment and increase flexibility in order to better respond to customer demands. "Advancing digitalization allows us to continue precisely these optimizations on a new level," says Rudolf Egbert, Managing Director for Flat at ArcelorMittal Commercial Germany.

As the world's largest steel manufacturer with more than 9,000 employees in Germany, ArcelorMittal now sees starting points for this in many areas. In addition, there is increasing pressure from customers, primarily the automotive (supply) industry and the mechanical engineering sector, who are pushing for more flexible delivery conditions in order to be able to react better to increasingly volatile markets and shorter product and production cycles.

With regard to the customer, the industry leader is currently focusing on three topics: Egbert: "Our customers need digital information from order to delivery. We provide this with our steeluser.com portal. The information is supplemented by our Track & Trace app, which enables seamless shipment tracking. In addition to the digital supply chain, we recently launched our Steeladvisor app, which provides up-to-date product information with an advisory function for eight sectors. And with Digital Twins, our customers will receive up-to-date digital information about their product in real time from the quotation phase to the delivery of the coils."

Online platforms and apps

From product guides to online ordering, order processing and tracking, stock management, delivery and invoicing, the Steeluser platform offers ArcelorMittal customers a comprehensive range of web services. These include document management, which includes delivery bills, quality certificates and more, and the option of technical advice. In addition, the ArcelorMittal Track & Trace app is available for individual sites and will soon be available across the board. "We want to provide our customers with real-time information about their purchases," says Egbert. Different data is incorporated into the information that can be called up. At the moment, the service offers half-hourly updates, including data visualization via Google Maps, on the location of the delivery and the estimated delivery time - based on real-time traffic information.

The Steeladvisor app is an up-to-date product guide that provides information on the ArcelorMittal steel range for eight different industrial sectors, helping manufacturers and designers to select the most suitable steel product for their requirements. The app is available for both iOS and Android devices.