PSI has been awarded by Benteler Stahl/Rohr GmbH with the delivery and implementation of the PSImetals production management system for the Lingen steel plant. As one of the world’s few pipe producers with its own steel works, Benteler enjoys the qualitative benefits of a comprehensive process chain to expand its competitive position by manufacturing highest quality and custom-made pipes. In the future PSImetals will, as the comprehensive steel mill control system, perform the planning and control of the production in the steel mill and therefore serve as the basis for the quality-assured and economical production of customer-specific types of steel.
The steel plant control system is based on the PSImetals components for Production Execution Systems (PES) and Advanced Line Sequencing (ALS). Primary functions are the structuring and steering of all the production processes using configurable, regulation-based procedural rules for every single type of steel, the integrated optimisation of application and alloys and the inclusion of metallurgical and thermal process models. They guarantee a high process quality by means of a proper sequence of the individual production steps in the system. With the possibility to configure knowledge management and therefore the associated standardisation and improvement of the operations, Benteler expects savings, especially with regard to energy costs.
With the functions for fine planning it is intended to exhaust the improvement potentials in the smelting and sequence planning as well as optimising the cutting and residual lengths. These will be supplemented by operative planning and control functions such as online scheduling. The objective is to attain longer sequences and improve throughput performance by optimising the timing sequences in the systems.
The connection and integration of the surrounding systems such as SAP and basic automation will be handled by PSIintegration. Ramp up will commence in December 2009; production operations of the system are planned for the beginning of 2010.
“Along with the mature functions for control and quality assurance of the production at the steel works and the configurability of the solutions, another important criterion for the decision to take PSImetals was the standardised SAP integration and the close partnership of PSI BT with SAP. With the integration of the steel plant control system with our SAP systems we are attaining an improved connection to the pipe works and, as a result, are expecting important effects for customer relations and simultaneously economical production control,” explains Udo Birkenhake, Head of Information Management at Benteler Stahl/Rohr.
Benteler Stahl/Rohr GmbH, with six production sites in Germany and Switzerland, is an important international manufacturer of top-quality steel pipe for the energy-producing sector, the automobile industry and other industrial sectors. The production program consists of welded, seamless, cold-drawn and welded, roll-drawn, precision steel pipes as well as seamless, hot-rolled pipes. A decisive competitive Benteler advantage is the integrated process chain in the steel production, from the steel works to the processing, allowing for special development of customer-specific types of steel.