ABB India said that it has wrapped up a melt shop digitalization project with Indian steelmaker JSW Steel by deploying its ABB Ability Smart Melt Shop solution for boosting the latter’s productivity and profitability.

The company said that it had integrated its digital solution ABB Ability Smart Melt Shop into a broader expansion at JSW Steel’s Dolvi Works plant in Maharashtra.

Gajraj Singh Rathore – President of JSW Steel said: “We relied on the metallurgical expertise of ABB’s Metals team as they proved to us that this digital solution could be integrated into our complex plant with its diversified operational procedures.

“The figures and the results from testing stacked up and we could see the capacity to enhance productivity, improve energy efficiency and generate a relativity quick return on investment too.”

ABB India is said to have enhanced the productivity and energy efficiency for the steel melt shop by building an operations optimization solution. This included ladle and crane tracking system, crane scheduling system, and thermal loss models for predicting target temperature for ladle furnaces and ensure the precise superheat at the caster.

The company said that ABB Ability Smart Melt Shop can increase JSW Steel’s EBITDA profit by nearly $2m per year by 4% higher casting speeds, one working day per month in time savings and an additional output of 24,000 tonnes a year.

The JSW Steel’s Dolvi Works plant has real time tracking of steel ladles now for process synchronization and improved maintenance planning.

With lower energy consumption, the plant will use fewer consumables per batch, thereby reducing its carbon footprint with less amount of CO₂ per tonne of steel produced.

Furthermore, automatic tracking and scheduling, which has been made possible with ABB Ability Smart Melt Shop will boost personnel safety as they are not required in the production area during crane and ladle movements. Besides, the scheduling solution results in decreasing tapping delays by ensuring that the movements are synchronized with the requirements of the process.

Tarun Mathur – Global Product Manager and Digital Lead for Metals, ABB said: “Based on advanced digital algorithms and mathematical modeling, ABB Ability Smart Melt Shop is a true example of technology convergence as it utilizes cameras and image-processing, weighing systems, radar, laser and wireless-based technologies to ensure steel melt shops operate at optimum levels where crane and ladle tracking and their availability are critical to the entire steelmaking process.”

Recently, ABB India said that Sunflag Iron and Steel Company had integrated its ABB Ability Data Analytics Platform for metals solution at its steel factory in Bhandara, India, to boost its decision making.

  ABB Ability Smart Melt Shop, ABB India, Dolvi Works, Gajraj Singh Rathore, India, JSW Steel, Maharashtra, Tarun Mathur