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	PSImetals

Advanced Planning & Scheduling (PSImetals APS)

Our production planning and control includes organisational planning, control and monitoring of the production processes - from processing of customers enquiries through to despatch, and taking account of quantities, times and capacity aspects.

The main functions are:

Production programme planning
Quantity planning
Time and capacity planning
Order preparation
Order processing

With its complete range of functions, the planning system ensures that inventory is minimised, that total process times are reduced and that delivery accuracies are improved by working the plant to its capacity and by fast, quality-supported pacing. It gives to all operators involved in planning and control a clear overview of what is going on right across the entire operation, allowing them to react quickly to any disturbance.

Advanced Line Sequencing (PSImetals ALS)

Advanced Line Sequencing is part of a family of modules for organising plant sequencing and order-processing. The planning of plant operational sequences covers all production stages of steel-production and processing, including:

Steel-making
Hot rolling
Cold rolling
Surface finish treatment

An extensive expert-system is implemented in the planning algorithms, which allows account to be taken of all plant-related technical restrictions.

Production Execution System (PSImetals PES/solid phase)

PSImetals PES is the foundation at planning and execution levels. The system is based on a data model tailored to meet with the demands of the metals industry. This data model covers all stages of production in metal production and processing. PSImetals PES includes the following functions:

Production data acquisition and processing
Production data pre-setting
Monitoring work in progress
Material updating
Job and order updating
Production status updating
Resource demand/consumption
...

Production Execution System (PSImetals PES/liquid phase)

Process control in the liquid phase is based on metallurgical and thermal realtime models developed, for example, by our sister organization, BFI. The models monitor the condition of the heat and calculate the setpoints necessary for the supply of material and energy in order to achieve the specified temperature and quality at the specified time. Model-based process control includes the following additional functions for electric steel plants - the same being analogously applicable to BOF steelworks:

Continuous calculation of the current condition of the heat
Automatic control of the supply of electrical energy as well as DRI and lime supply
Calculation of the alloying additions for the ladle
Energy distribution control for EAF/LF in order to optimize energy consumption
Automatic recording of downtimes in order to generate fault reports
Process monitoring and quality evaluation in realtime for the continuous casting lines
...

Metallurgical models

Further components of PSImetals PES are plant and process monitoring models as well as process control, quality management and forecasting models developed by our sister organization, Betriebsforschungsinstitut, VDEh-Institut fur angewandte Forschung GmbH (BFI), and by our partners. These features include, for example, the forecasting of the blast furnace tapping temperature, technical data mining, quality analysis across multiple process stages, online quality evaluation of continuous-casting products, the development of hybrid models for the cold rolling process and an intelligent alloying calculation function. In order to properly address these important tasks, PSI BT GmbH has developed algorithms for event treatment and posting logic which are specifically adapted to the needs of metal production and form the kernel of the system together with the data model.

Warehouse & Transport Management (PSImetals WTM)

Efficiently organised storage, integrated into the logistics of the business operation, calls for a modern storage-management system. To optimise product stocks, improve the use of available capacity and reduce wastage both of product and production, we supply systems that provide:

Configuration and management of multiple-store plants
Communications to cranes and hand terminals via radio link
User-configurable rules for optimisation and storage restrictions
Store-inventory balancing with the higher-level production control or production planning system
Windows-style user interface in a modern system environment

Energy Management System (PSImetals EMS)

To minimise the risk of exceeding power consumption limits and keep down external costs, prediction of energy requirements is an essential information. Our demand-prediction system uses various procedures, which monitor each situation and the values of the current setup data. The predictive procedures distinguish between various different target objects: production plant units, plant groups and complete factories. The timescale of the relevant predictions and procedural methods can also be taken into account.

Enterprise Application Integration (PSImetals EAI)

We provide an infrastructure that allows a total integration of your business processes across all system and platform boundaries. A Message Broker co-ordinates data exchanges between the individual applications. The link between EAI and the various different applications is made by an adapter, which guarantees the capture of the specific application format and its syntax.

Control of zinc coating weight on hot-dip galvanizing lines

The objectives of a coating weight control system are to produce: consistent steady-state coating weight with a low standard deviation and robustness for changes in coating weight set-points, line speed and air knife to strip distances for all operating regions. The primary component for controlling coating weight is air knife pressure. The model based controller (MBC) automatically controls air knife pressure to give a constant and uniform zinc coating in accordance with customer-order specification. Two similar but separated controllers, one on each side of the strip, determine set points for the top and bottom air knife pressure. Knife positions and line speed are manually controlled. For coating weight measurements gauges are used. This condition introduces a transport lag in the control loop. Feedforward control is used to overcome the effect of the trans-port delay and feedback, in the form of time-delayed measurements of coating weight, is used to drive an adaptation algorithm updating the model coefficient K. The parameter K accounts for any systematic modeling errors.

Roll Management System (PSImetals RMS)

The Roll Management System includes all the key core functions for efficient roll management. It provides a comprehensive overview of all available rolls in the rolling-mill, the roll-assembly area and the roll store.

Data Warehouse (PSImetals DWH)

The Data Warehouse is a valuable tool for on-line management of the business. It provides the basis for comprehensive information-supply decision-support and control. Our system supports all aspects of the steel industry. Our PSImetals DWH provides open connectivity with other systems such as SAP, production management systems and other applications.

DataTools for Technical Data

In addition to the analysis of "traditional" business-related data, it is also necessary to analyse and document technical process and quality data that relates to the material being processed. A typical question might be, for example, "is the quality problem in the cold strip related to some special feature of the melt for this order in the steelworks?" The software package "DataTools" from Betriebsforschungsinstitut (BFI) - a specialist in the analysis of this kind of technical data and the development of the related models - adds these important technical components to PSI BT GmbH's Data Warehouse system.