MES Supercharges Steel Production: How It Improves Factory Performance

In steel production manufacturing, the intricacies of management within the factory environment present daunting challenges. Each order placed for the batch is different and varies from client to client, necessitating careful preparation according to the outcome. While most steel mills have their own MES system, they are often tailored to the specific production needs and operating procedures. Some still operate with a lot of paperwork and manual documentation. Also the demanding nature of the steel industry necessitates a strategic approach to enhance operational efficiency in the plant to reduce waste and mitigate costs.

It’s important to consider that even single digit percentage improvements in yield and efficiency in the steel production can translate to millions of dollars saved per year. Hence, MES systems customizable to the needs of individual units can make a significant difference.

Challenges in Steel Production Manufacturing

Steel production faces a number of challenges that starts from the level of global demand and trickles down to the complexity of running a steel mill. Unlike many other production processes, which are quite flexible from start to finish, steel production works with a lot of momentum. Errors are always expensive, and the costs could run in the millions. But here are major challenges in the steel industry looking from top down:  

Volatility of price and overcapacity of plants

The global steel industry grapples with an oversupply conundrum, where production capacity significantly surpasses demand, fostering cutthroat competition and price volatility. In 2021, the sector witnessed a high steel production of 1.95 billion tons against a demand of 1.89 billion tons. Surplus production always exerts a notable downward force on prices in the market.

Global Trade Challenges

Trade policies meant to protect local industries, like tariffs and quotas, disrupt the global trade landscape, creating market distortions that hinder industry growth. In 2018, the United States implemented Section 232 tariffs, imposing a significant 25% duty on steel imports. This move reshaped global trade patterns, leaving a lasting impact on the industry’s dynamics.

Slow Digital Transformation

The steel industry lags in embracing digital technologies which impedes its operational optimization, efficiency enhancement, and cost reduction. Despite acknowledging the benefits of digital transformation, steel companies face sluggish adoption due to inherent implementation challenges.

Environmental Challenges

Steel production which constitutes approximately 7% of global emissions, emerges as a substantial contributor to greenhouse gasses. Stringent environmental regulations and the implementation of carbon pricing mechanisms elevate production costs, presenting challenges to the steel industry’s sustainability efforts.

How the MES System Improves Factory Performance and Mitigates Challenges

Here are some of the ways in which MES system can supercharge steel production:

Enhanced Production intelligence

MES seamlessly integrates your business, production, energy demands, and logistics data by linking equipment, control systems, applications, and databases. This enables the identification of production challenges, such as bottlenecks and quality issues, through dashboards and real-time performance information in production trend reports.

Additionally, MES establishes a connection between the mill floor and your ERP systems, ensuring direct delivery of production reports populated with material consumption, quality, and process details. What it can also do is utilize Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) capabilities to optimize production planning and scheduling and align it with real demand in the market based on your inputs. This helps minimize excess inventory, and enable efficient planning for production, which contributes to price stabilization.

Over-all Performance Improvement

MES system improves productivity by tracking by providing essential metrics, such as overall equipment effectiveness and downtime analysis, and all this data is contextualized by shift, area, and production site. The integration of production data with diverse sets of parallel data, like energy consumption, enables comprehensive cross-referencing that can go a long way in monitoring energy consumption. Savings in terms of energy not only benefits directly but also helps make the process greener by reduction in the carbon footprint.

Moreover, the combined data enables pinpointing productivity bottlenecks and strategically identifying areas for cost reduction. The system offers a holistic understanding of operational efficiency that aids in fine-tuning processes, minimizing downtime, and optimizing resource allocation for enhanced productivity.

Precise Recipe Management

Manual recipe development and entry and reliance on physical documents for workflow management are time-intensive tasks prone to errors. MES streamlines operations by enabling the creation and storage of recipes, standardizing procedures, and directly synchronizing order management with the ERP system. When a new order arrives, MES interfaces with the ERP to handle production schedules, quality, and operational settings.

The system then generates precise work orders, optimizing sequences and executing them smoothly on the plant floor. This ensures that accurate recipe set-points are promptly transmitted to the control layer, facilitating automated and precise recipe execution at the furnaces.

Improved Quality

MES enhances operational efficiency by providing pre-designed workflows and instructions and aids operators in adhering to defined quality parameters. The system collects data at quality checkpoints and issues hold codes or production alerts if products deviate from desired quality standards. This can avert the release of substandard products and wasted energy that goes into making and recycling the batch. Furthermore, MES facilitates scrap tracking, enabling decision makers to discern reasons behind product rejection and minimizing recurring issues.

Complete Tracking / Genealogy

Uninterrupted visibility across the entire production spectrum is one of the biggest benefits of an MES system in steel production. It provides a comprehensive view of the mill from tracing raw materials to finished products. The system adeptly tracks the lot, including piece-level inventory, work-in-progress, materials on hold, and finalized goods awaiting shipment. The inclusion of product traceability ensures access to historical data, delineating the manufacturing origin for each metal piece.

Closing Thoughts

The impact of MES in steel production is substantial, given its potential to optimize the entire production process. With numerous companies still operating in steel production without embracing full digitization, there exists ample opportunity to enhance competitiveness in the market. As seasoned workers retire, technology becomes crucial to compensate for their wealth of experience. Storing information in MES systems facilitates a smoother onboarding process for the next generation of workers, ensuring a seamless transfer of knowledge and skills. Embracing MES not only improves efficiency but also future-proofs the industry, aligning it with evolving technological demands of Industry 4.0.Follow our blog to learn all you need to know about MES systems in manufacturing and the technologies enabling efficiencies. To implement intelligent sensing systems on your production floor, get in touch with our team to learn how asset tracking, CCTV, GPS, UWB and Bluetooth Beacons can boost your real-time tracking capability.