We at ANT Steel Engineers (Asia) Pvt. Ltd., provide consultancy in the field of automation for steel plants. The scope covered under this head mainly consists of:-
- Basic automation concept development for the envisaged plant/Machine.
- Advice on hardware and software selection.
- Developing software /Hardware solutions for the specific process.
- Automation of the process as per the practical process requirement/Client requirements
- Advice on Process automation of LEVEL -1 and LEVEL-2 which is mainly done by developing the write-up of the automation process and flow chart diagrams with input and output requirement at various stages of the processes involved in the production process.
The Table below explains the basic concept of levels of automations and the processes involved in each level in any production process.
| LEVEL OF AUTOMATION |
DESCRIPTION |
| Level 0 |
Measuring Devices: –
Pressure, Temperature, Speed, Accelerometer, Force, Position, Shape, Thickness, … |
| Level 1 |
Closed loop systems like:-
Speed Regulator, Tension Regulator, Sequence Control, Position Control, Temperature Control, SCADA |
| Level 2 |
Control software Modules like:-
Temperature model (e.g., EAF, LRF), Shape Control, Mill Set-Up Control, Coil Tracking, Runout Table Cooling Control, .. |
| Level 3 |
Plant wide operation software like:-
Blast Furnace, Electric Arc Furnace, LRF, Caster, Reheating, Hot Mill, Cold Mill, Anneal Line, Pickle Line, … |
| Level 4 |
Plant Level, Like:-
Scheduling, Material Flow, Manufacturing Execution System (MES)… |
| Level 5 |
Corporate Level CRM, TMS, ERP like:-
Order Process, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)… |
We at ANT consider 3 levels of automation having three layers as shown in the diagram below.
Level – 2 (This part is combination levels of level 3,4,5 in the table shown above)
Level – 1( MICROCONTROLLERS, SCADA SYSTEMS , HMI)
Level – 0( AC DC DRIVES FIELD INSTRUMENTS)
The basic level is level -0 where the physical work is done .The examples are AC/DC Drives, Various field instruments and actuators.
Level -1 is the level where the software programs define the action to be taken by the level-0 components. For example the programs in PLC give the commands to the drives to run at a predefined speed.
Level -2 Is the combination of various higher levels as explained in the table above and mainly dose the supervisory function as per the predefined process parameters. This level also caters to the report generation and Scheduling, Material Flow, Manufacturing Execution System Order Process, Enterprise Resource Planning, etc. since this level is a combination of remaining 3 levels as per the above table, it has got a wider scope and it is defined as per the plant needs.
We also take up the process specific tasks where we provide detailed concept and support for converting manual processes in to automated processes as per the need of the customer.
Benefits of Automation after implementation of various levels of automation in the plant:-
- Lower WIP Inventory Levels
- Productive,Empowered Employees
- Enforce Regulatory Conformance
- No Lost Paperwork/Blueprints
- Information Decision Support
Various automation level representations:-
