Industry 4.0
Cross-process quality management
Swiss Steel, a member of the Schmolz + Bickenbach Group, produces around 600,000 tons of engineering steel per year at its Emmenbrücke site. As part of a company-wide Industry 4.0 initiative, the new PQA quality management system from MET/Con is to be used as a pilot at the Emmenbrücke site to optimize competitiveness in the long term.
MET/Con, an SMS Group company, was commissioned to deliver an IT system solution with a holistic approach that incorporates a know-how-based set of expert rules. The modern software and database solution from QuinLogic in Aachen, also an SMS Group company, was used. Such an approach has been successfully implemented in the past at selected flat steel manufacturers with a high processing depth.
The PQA system analyzes online process, production and quality data from steel production to the casting, rolling and drawing process. The PQA set of expert rules, which is freely configurable and includes specific know-how, takes customer and order-specific information into account in the quality assessment and release for further processing.
Modular software structure
The modular software structure includes a LogicDesigner for flexible rule adaptation, a quality assessment module and a web-based reporting system. At the heart of the quality management system is the DataCorrelator software module, which covers current topics such as big data analysis and artificial intelligence (AI). Various intelligent, mathematical evaluation methods, including pattern recognition options, are used to identify correlations that can be used directly for process optimization.
With this project, Swiss Steel, Steeltec and MET/Con are working together to set a milestone in how the site's performance and quality levels can be improved in future through complete process and production transparency.
The SMS Group is a group of internationally active plant and mechanical engineering companies for the steel and non-ferrous metals industry. Around 13,500 employees worldwide generate a turnover of over EUR 3 billion. The sole owner of the holding company SMS Group GmbH is the Weiss Family Foundation.
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