Shandong Steel’s Yongfeng Lingang Co is preparing to enter a new stage in its push for full-process intelligent manufacturing.

The steel giant had placed the development of its phase II smart plant in the hands of CISDI.

Phase II at the special steels production base will mainly produce flat products and will become a smart demo for the industry.

Phase I, which produces long products, is operating with CISDI’s unified industrial internet platform and is the sector’s first full-process digital plant in China.

Phase II will extend the platform to all ironmaking, steelmaking and rolling procedures, and will implement additional smart application software and smart tech.

These software products will help Lingang pursue greater standards and results. Integrated controls will operate Phase II’s ironmaking, upstream, steelmaking and rolling, operational and production management, lean production and ops management.

Phase II’s procedure intelligence will be more advanced than phase I’s and will achieve optimal operation and production control. The steel plant’s operators will have a more comfortable working environment and be able to perform tasks with greater controllability and inventiveness.

Since going online in June 2021, phase I’s platform has reduced costs per tonne of billet by US$ 23.12 compared with Lingang’s HQ plant, and achieved an average per capita output of over 1,600 tonnes a year. These indicators demonstrate the many values and benefits to be gained from a full-process smart plant.

Phase I’s intelligent control centre at Yongfeng Lingang’s smart plant