Project nominated for the Innovation of the Year Steelie Award 2021
ABS Quality Wire Rod 4.0 is today the realisation of the rolling mill of the future in terms of technological innovation, digitalisation, safety and a green steel approach.
ABS QWR 4.0 was conceived from the beginning not only to be the leading wire rod mill, incorporating the technologies often labelled Industry 4.0, but also to enable sustainability in metals manufacturing.
Advanced control systems and special instrumentation were conceived, also redesigning mechanical solutions, to minimise human operations on the field or to make them simpler and more intuitive.
Quality management requires exact production tracking, which was also achieved thanks to yard management systems, robotics for material marking, artificial vision systems to identify and check for specific markings, fully automatic coil yards connected to process control systems and plant enterprise resource management (ERP).
QWR 4.0 yards and logistics management was designed to ensure full traceability and fully automatic handling of billets and coils.
A new and fully immersive control and supervision model based on strong human-machine interaction and processing technologies was designed, the so-called Danieli Intelligent Plant (DIP).
Process, production, and equipment are holistically integrated with operators and decision makers using a data-driven approach, artificial intelligence and machine learning, all of which enable autonomous optimisation of process, quality, and maintenance.