Iscor minimises electric arc furnace downtime
July 2003
Data Acquisition & Telemetry
Iscor is the largest producer of rolled steel products in Africa and Vanderbijlpark Steel is the company's largest facility. Uptime of the electric furnaces at this facility is crucial to profitable production and, in Iscor's bid for continuous improvements of its production facilities, it was decided to install a pilot system of Wonderware's DT (down time) Analyst. Today, DT Analyst is in full use and is helping Iscor aim towards a significant increase in annual income. Steel-making at Iscor Vanderbijlpark Steel, ESM Plant facility is a batch process consisting of three main processes as shown in Figure 2.
Delays at the arc furnace affect the 'downstream' processes and it became necessary to identify the delays in this early phase of the overall process. "The objective of the new system was to replace the outdated and manually-driven system, which did not provide accurate data with regard to time delays and their duration," says John Bordalo, Architect Level II, ISM Information Management at Iscor. "An additional goal was to optimise the process with an operator-driven system that would allow for web-based reporting." The control system consists of Modicon Quantum PLCs with Wonderware InTouch HMI and InSQL realtime historian as shown in the system topology diagram.
Figure 1
1. At the electric arc furnace, direct reduced iron, heavy and light scrap as well as lime, dolomite and anthracite are used to produce liquid steel
2. At Secondary Metallurgy, the liquid steel in the ladle is treated to achieve the metallurgical properties to comply with specific client orders. This is done primarily by alloy additions into the ladle and by the refining of sulphur. Secondary Metallurgy consists of three primary stations: Ladle Furnace 1 and 2 as well as a Vacuum Arc-Degasser
3. At the Slab Caster, the liquid steel is cast to a specific length, width and thickness. After the caster, the slabs are marked and stored at the slab yard before being shipped for rolling
The first phase of the migration focused on the network topology and rolling out the standard interface to the Control Systems, ie, InSQL. Two Industrial SQL Servers E AF - Electric Arc Furnace - and SECMET, an Intranet Server and Database Server were successfully deployed between October 2002 and February 2003. The InSQL servers are configured with MBENET I/O servers to retrieve realtime data from the Modicon Quantum PLCs and the batch information is captured on the Database Server using the InSQL Event Sub-system extensively.
"Initially, the delays generated on the plant were to be captured using the event sub-system on the EAF InSQL," says Bordalo. "However, what is now termed the inefficiency delays were not easily configurable in this manner and the next option was to deploy DT Analyst. This was decided for several reasons including ease of configuration, Web-based reporting as well as the ability to handle both 'normal' and 'inefficiency' delays. DT Analyst 2.0 was deployed on a trial basis in November 2002. The downtime definitions were configured and the event monitors were deployed on the InTouch HMIs. However, the level of category definitions were not sufficient for Iscor's requirements and, additionally, the requirement to create sub-delays from a main delay was not possible.
"To prove the value of the system, it was decided to deploy the DT Analyst engine and then to move the delays as they are completed on the DT Analyst database to the Database Server and to then develop our customised front-end (Developed jointly with AST VT PAS: Mr J. Olivier) to handle the delays interface with the operational staff. This was accomplished successfully in March 2003. The custom application is an ACTIVE X container and the reporting is to be done in the same application."
Figure 1. System topology diagram
About DT Analyst
DT Analyst captures equipment downtime data for analysis in order to improve ROI. DT Analyst also handles OEE (overall equipment effectiveness). OEE is a system of measurement used by the world's leading manufacturers that allows managers to evaluate the true effectiveness and potential of existing plant before making decisions about expansion or the purchase of new plant. OEE has become the crucial link between the financial and operational performance of production assets and has emerged as a powerful method of evaluating the productivity of automated production systems. OEE rolls inefficiencies related to equipment, consumables, personnel, procedures, and quality into a percentage.
For more information contact Mike le Plastrier, Futuristix Advanced Control Systems, 011 723 9900, [email protected], www.futuristix.co.za
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