Improve plant operations by applying automatic cranes and
yard management to new or existing machines
Automatic Yards and Automatic Cranes shall become the basis of a high-efficiency safe plant, removing logistical bottlenecks and hazardous environments, such as the stored materials and products, improving yard capacity with smart logistic management and reduced human interaction.
The vision of Danieli Centro Cranes is not only to improve the operating conditions of the cranes and operators, but to offer complete control of operations sequencing, data monitoring and storing, crane data processing and preventive maintenance, and to transform the cranes into authentic, automatic unmanned tools: the intelligent operational “hand” of plant and production scheduling software.
Crane operations shall become completely automatic and, in case human overview is still needed for safety or legally mandated requirements, this could be supervised in remote mode.
Significant reductions in plant operating costs and improved plant efficiency can be established thanks to progressively increased automatic and remote control of crane operations.
The most recent improvement for achieving reliable and automatic system to intelligently handle the products is the “object vision”, which defines the actual load position for lifting. The crane is no longer a blind executor of missions directed by a higher automation level, but it is the smart tool within an unmanned environment.
Facing this “real world” means equipping the crane with intelligent sensors, not only able to detect objects but also to characterize the object, by means of image processing software, to detect maintenance requests automatically, and to create historic data of plant operations and machines efficiency.
"The future of the cranes is not only to be an automatic unmanned tool, but also to be a source of digital data for equipment and plant operations analysis aiming for a continuous improvement of equipment design and efficiency."
For ArcelorMittal in Dunkerque, France, Danieli has supplied and commissioned an automatic crane to automatically handle the slab yard of the existing hot strip mill. The mission of this “intelligent logistic tool”, is not only to recognize the real position of the slabs to be picked up, but to characterize each pile of slabs, in order to safely organize the yard.
This is done by an accurate detection of dimensions and characteristics for a positive confirmation of each slab identity.
The Seversky project, a pipe mill in Russia, achieved a significant step forward from a single automatic crane scenario to one involving two automatic cranes, seven automatic loading /unloading manipulators and five automatic transfer cars, all handled as a coordinated logistic handling system, completely unmanned.
Developed together with Danieli Automation and Danieli Centro Tube, the project successfully improved the logistics in the intermediate storage of the pipe lots coming from the FQM mill toward finishing lines and heat treatments.
To TMK RESITA we have delivered three cranes to control the meltshop bay, moving the ladle/buckets automatically in defined patterns and positions. Only the pick-ups or deposits confirmation are left to the operator.
The cranes are driven by an automated driving system, that establishes the positioning of the crane throughout the meltshop bay, following the process of the EAF furnace and casting machine. The crane also is equipped with a power regenerative system to feed the braking energy back to the power line, reducing the OpEx of the cranes.