Vertical solutions: New steel plants to run on metals-oriented software suite
By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 5/21/2008 12:21:00 PM
ThyssenKrupp Steel USA has selected a supply chain management solution designed specifically for the metals industry to run a series of carbon steel processing plants the company is building in Alabama.
The plants, scheduled to open in 2010, will have the capacity to turn out 5 million metric tons of steel each year. The plants will be powered by a supply chain management system from Broner Metals Solutions.
Broner is expected to provide planning, scheduling, and MES solutions for the carbon steel processing facilities: hot strip mill, cold- and hot-rolling mills and galvanizing mills, covering processes from the arrival of trucks at the slab yard to the shipping of finished products. Broner will be supplying the following standard modules:
• Production Planner;
• Production Scheduler;
• Schedule Editor;
• Material Planner;
• Production Management;
• Quality Management;
• Inventory Management; and
• Equipment Management.
Broner’s Warehouse Management solution (WMS) assists in a day-to-day warehouse administration, and allows users to track any changes in stock, down to single pieces in each section of the warehouse, optimizes stock location and provides a real-time overview of the warehouse. Its functionality also allows users to manage crane operations by presenting transport orders in a clearer way, and indicate direction for the driver. In all, WMS helps to reduce operation time and increase material turnover thus saving costs and resources.
Broner Production Planner and Production Scheduler perform automatic planning and scheduling of production processes for each machine in the plant, by exchanging data with Broner MES modules and SAP, taking into consideration and optimizing low-level constraints such as change-over times or shift constraints, with order sequencing based on the material due to arrive at each machine, with the flexibility to replan or reschedule.
Broner Material Planner plans, allocates and identifies materials efficiently according to the current customer’s order, creates links between sales and works orders, therefore reducing inventory and increasing capacity of the plant.
Broner MES modules span all the operational management processes of dispatching, execution, tracking and data management at all levels. Production Management module monitors and logs production in real time, monitors the progress of schedule execution, tracks production and records production data; Quality Management module provides facilities to monitor and control quality throughout the production process; Inventory Management module optimizes production and logistical processes by monitoring energy and consumables usage, movement of goods, storage and shipment while Equipment Management module monitors the equipment status and usage, by means of obtaining information about production performance and notifications for maintenance needs.
Broner is participating in this project in partnership with IBM, which was appointed by ThyssenKrupp as its main contractor.
