Case Study and Analysis of the Production Processes in a Steel Factory in Jordan

Abstract

This work represents a true case study and analysis of the technical and energy managerial aspects of recommended designs of the production lines of a steel factory in Jordan. A modern structure of a control system based on SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) technology is proposed. Furthermore, the mechanical and electrical maintenance sections in the factory were reviewed due to their major effects on the production cost and energy consumption of the factory. This study was performed in two main phases: The first phase contains the collected data and process assessment that were undertaken by traditional direct observation and activity categorization, while the second phase gave details on the proposed control methodology in terms of design and architecture. Moreover, a proposal on maintenance planning and procedure program was also included in this study in order to reduce the time and accordingly the cost of maintenance. The steel factory studied produces various steel products such as: Concrete Reinforcement Steel Bars (Rebars), Flat & Square Bars Section which includes standard flat bars, standard square bars, and plane round bars, in addition to Wire mesh in different sizes and steel billets. In steel production industries, two automation levels can, in general, be identified. The first level involves the electromechanical actuation of the devices in the production plant; this level of automation is currently available in every plant. The second level involves the supervision of the production process; this level of automation is less frequent and is generally only partial. In fact, steel production involves a variety of complex physical phenomena, described by sophisticated mathematical models which are rarely usable to derive real-time advice for process supervision and control. Most operators' support systems for steel production are represented by simple technologies such as microprocessor-based systems. Based on the outcomes of this study, the factory purchased a new melting furnace of (60) tons capacity instead of the (30) tons capacity melting furnace used in the factory before the study. The factory is considering also the purchase of a scrap press in its new budget in order to improve scrap quality before melting it; in order to reduce the rate of consuming the furnace electrodes. Also, the maintenance section will be restructured by merging electrical and mechanical maintenance sections into one section headed by the deputy of the factory manager.