“5G+industrial Internet” upgrades China’s steel industry for a new era

The integration of 5G technology into industrial Internet has boosted the digital transformation of China’s steel industry in recent years, injecting new impetus into the high-quality development of the sector.

Thanks to the introduction of 5G-powered unmanned bridge cranes, Tan Bin, a bridge crane operator at Hunan Valin Xiangtan Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. in central China’s Hunan province, doesn’t need to endure harsh working conditions anymore.

File photo shows a worker operating 5G unmanned bridge cranes at the Hunan Valin Xiangtan Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. in central China’s Hunan province.

“I used to sit in the crane cab,” Tan recalled, recounting that the cab was always filled with dust and loud noise and that he had to wear a mask during work.

Since his company combined 5G with industrial Internet, Tan’s work has undergone huge changes. Today, Tan is able to control bridge cranes accurately and remotely in a spacious, clean and quiet operating room.

“The high reliability and low latency of new technologies enable fast data transmission and the accurate operation of the equipment. The 5G unmanned bridge cranes have significantly improved the efficiency of operators,” said He Wei, deputy head of the company’s equipment department.

To improve the collaborative operations of coke pushers, coal charging cars, coke guiding cars and coke quenching cars, Shougang Jingtang United Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. in Tangshan, north China’s Hebei province developed a remote collaboration solution based on the use of 5G networks and the company’s management system in 2019. The solution ensures real-time monitoring and reliable, efficient and safer remote operations for the four kinds of machines.

“We now realizing the stable, safe and fast transmission of images, and our company’s central control room will send instructions to respective machines for their collaborative operation,” said Ding Hongqi, an employee of the company, while referring to previous image transmission delays caused by low bandwidth. Due to the solutions, the company has seen its production efficiency rise by about 15 percent since 2019.

Peng Jun, an industry expert from Chinese tech giant Huawei 5G introduced that technology enables the collaborative operation of multiple devices, and thus improves the production efficiency of steel companies while reducing energy consumption.

Combining 5G networks with industrial Internet has also improved the efficiency of troubleshooting for the production lines of steel companies.

A hot-rolled strip steel plant operated by Ansteel Group Co., Ltd. in Anshan, northeast China's Liaoning province, piloted the predictive maintenance of equipment (motors) powered by 5G technology for its hot continuous rolling production line with over 400 roller tracks in 2019. The plant upgraded its key equipment with the help of 5G and industrial Internet. Sensors are able to collect data such as the temperature, vibration, pressure, and current of the equipment and then upload these data points to a cloud platform. Through artificial intelligence and big data analysis, the company can realize real-time monitoring, diagnosis and the handling of equipment failures.

Once any abnormal motor current is discovered, the production line’s management system will send out an alarm.

“In the past, we had to check all the roller tracks one by one to find out reasons behind scratches on steel strips, which often took us half an hour to one hour,” said Ma Liang, an executive with the plant, noting that they now can identify equipment failures within about 10 minutes.

The solution has not only improved the efficiency of troubleshooting for the production line, but also reduced the product defect rate from 7 percent to 3.8 percent, Ma added.