ArcelorMittal – Building for the Future with GE Digital

The steel industry, like many industrial sectors, is seeing a shift toward digital innovation as a way to remain competitive. Steel manufacturers are being challenged to do more with less—meaning produce lighter, stronger materials—faster, with consistent quality, ultimately resulting in a higher margin-differentiated product. While at the same time, facing challenges with mill productivity, due to disparate systems and siloed data sets.

Steel manufactures are breaking down these data siloes by adopting Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications that deliver standardized connectivity into their disparate floor systems, enabling users to have clear visibility into their asset and process data. Once engineers can get their hands on the data, the insights and intelligence that can be derived will not only enhance a company’s bottom line, but improve their ability to meet customer demand in an everchanging market.

Transforming steel manufacturing

ArcelorMittal Construction, a global market leader in the production of steel profiling and sandwich panels for buildings, and GE Digital are now partnering to digitally transform their operations across 26 manufacturing facilities worldwide. 

ArcelorMittal Construction, whose customers include Ikea and Lidl supermarkets, are working with GE Digital to implement GE Digital's Manufacturing Execution Systems  which helps leaders and operators to leverage relevant real-time insights to reduce delivery time and increase throughput. In turn, this helps ArcelorMittal’s customers to reduce their time to market, whether it be a new office building, football stadium, or train station.           

This industrial application provides ArcelorMittal Construction full visibility of their operations in the plant. It enables them to record and track, for each production order, every individual task and any related inputs/outputs. This visibility means more flexibility for operators and management alike, and is helping to drive productivity gains that will further improve their ability to meet their customer’s needs in a dynamic marketplace. 

Reducing unplanned downtime and enhancing productivity 

ArcelorMittal is also partnering with GE Power to deploy its asset performance management (APM) solution at its Belgium plant to reduce unplanned downtime and enhance productivity.

Steel production is a complicated process that encompasses a large number of power conversion devices. For context, one processing line can include hundreds of motors, with their associated drives running conveyor belts or driving rolling mills. These machines’ performance is crucial to the plant’s overall productivity, and the company’s profits and product quality.

With APM, ArcelorMittal will be able to monitor these critical motors leveraging digital twin technology to determine if conditions suggest an impending failure on a motor. The software will also enable the company to minimize the number of preventative maintenance activities being conducted by shifting these to on-condition based activities, reducing overhaul and repair spending and resource requirements.

Accelerating innovation in steel manufacturing

As steel manufacturers look to digitize operations finding the right partner is the key to accelerating digital transformation. GE Digital has deep domain expertise in the steel industry, and we are currently partnering with more than two dozen of the world’s leading steel companies on their digital industrial transformation journeys to:

•        Deliver consistent quality
•        Reduce their cost per ton footprint
•        Minimize production losses and unplanned downtime
•        Discover opportunities for efficiencies and productivity

Our industrial applications are primed to help accelerate innovation in manufacturing—whether it’s having up to the minute production views, monitoring the asset health of a rolling mill, or providing a holistic view of operations across the globe, GE Digital is your partner for finding the hidden opportunity costs within your mills.