Seamless Data Processing Between Operations & Production

The customer is a global steel company that produces a wide range of steel products for mining, automotive, construction, mechanical engineering, fuel and energy industry sectors.

Challenge

Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is a vital system used in manufacturing to facilitate control over the production process. The proper functioning of MES depends on the inputs from a variety of business management systems. The customer commissioned our engineers to develop a middleware that would allow for the integration of a recently introduced automated steel qualification system into a large-scale steel plant.

Solution

In order to execute the integration, we developed several quality assessment algorithms and implemented them on the qualification system side. The middleware solution enabled the data transfer from the shop’s systems to the automated steel qualification systems.

Note that the automated steel qualification system simultaneously interacts with the industrial control systems at the shop floor and MES. That said, the qualification system collects data from both levels separately. The system analyzes the obtained data in real time using certification groups, such as chemical composition, geometry, etc. Intermediate, final or corrected certification results are recorded and stored in MES.

Impact

The middleware solution closes the gap between the shop floor and MES subsystems and provides the seamless data processing between operations and production levels. Conducting an in-depth analysis of the product quality prior to shipment allows one to reduce the reject rate, thus increasing customer satisfaction.

Technologies:

Backend:

• Java

Database:

• MySQL

Other:

• Oracle
• SAP