Fero Labs' AI-powered software offers significant advantages for the steel industry, enabling faster and more effective process optimization and issue resolution to increase speed to solution and minimize unnecessary expenditure.
Current analysis methods utilize excel forms or minitabs to identify issues and find solutions. However, these solutions are too slow and offer limited complexity.
By supporting a steel plant with Fero’s powerful Catalyst AI, Process Engineers and Metallurgists can diagnose and resolve issues faster without changing their trusted workflow or losing the scientific rigor they rely upon. Production anomalies will be detected early, before they impact operations and require urgent intervention.
In the short term, engineers using the Fero platform will improve their bandwidth by performing their tasks faster and more accurately. Longer term, engineers will be able to use this expanded capacity each day to focus on activities that further cut costs and increase speed to market, without constant disruption to solve unexpected issues.
Here are some specific use cases and the benefits of using Fero Labs:
Alloy Reduction and Cost Savings
Fero Labs helps steel manufacturers optimize alloy additives in real-time, leading to substantial cost savings and improved sustainability:
- At Gerdau's Petersburg mill, engineers reduced raw material costs by $3 per ton of steel.
- Over 500,000 pounds of manganese, carbon, niobium, and vanadium were conserved.
- The average steel plant sees $1-$6 per ton in raw material savings within six months of deploying Fero.
Why Fero is faster and better:
Fero software recognizes that every heat composition is different. Fero's live recommendations are delivered in under a minute, showing engineers exactly how much of each alloy to add. This real-time optimization allows for immediate adjustments, minimizing waste and maximizing savings much faster than traditional methods.
“Fero tells us the lowest amount of alloys we can use to pass, so we can optimize in real time.” - Process Engineer
Quality Improvement
Steel manufacturers can use Fero software to enhance product quality while maintaining efficiency:
- Fero software can be adapted to any quality use case, from controlling casting conditions to minimize surface defects, to adapting to feedstock variability to minimize fractures in wire rods.
- Gerdau observed a 15% reduction in quality variation in production using the Fero machine learning workflow, enabling the company to deliver the product quality that their customers expect.
- Engineers can easily integrate and merge data from various process, lab, and quality-related databases to analyze specific product and grade types.
- Fero’s powerful Catalyst AI and process engine enables engineers to use much larger and more complex data files which helps to pinpoint issues faster.
Why Fero's faster and better:
Fero's ability to evaluate multiple nonlinear relationships between data points allows for more comprehensive quality control than traditional analytical tools. This leads to faster identification and resolution of quality issues.
“With Fero Labs, we developed a model that dynamically predicts mechanical yield and tensile strength and tells us the most cost-optimized chemistry, so we can achieve and exceed our limits without overshooting.” - Carlo Travaglini, Director of Technology, Gerdau
Production Flexibility and Adaptability
Fero Labs enables steel plants to quickly adapt to changing conditions:
- The software provides dynamic targets that can fluctuate from heat to heat, allowing for real-time optimization.
- Engineers retain operational control by building and training no-code models in minutes within the Fero platform, and streamlining change requests to Operators so nothing slips through the cracks.
- Operators can easily view and implement recommendations through dedicated monitors in central pulpit locations.
Why Fero's faster and better:
The ability to adapt quickly to changing conditions is crucial in steel production. Every minutes running sub-optimally requires unnecessary energy expenditure and can impact product quality. Fero's real-time recommendations allow for immediate adjustments, resulting in faster optimization compared to traditional methods that may only rely on historical data or periodic analysis.
“The biggest challenge we face is the complexity of the plant and process. By using the Fero Labs platform, we can quickly prioritize where value is to be found.” - Automation Engineer
Energy Efficiency and Sustainability
Steel manufacturers can use Fero to improve energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact:
- Fero’s industrial AI software helps reduce the time it takes to process batches, leading to significant energy savings.
- By optimizing raw material usage, Fero contributes to reduced mining and transportation needs, improving overall sustainability.
- By relying on Fero software to identify the chemical composition of each heat, steelmakers are able to increase their recycled feedstock with confidence, knowing that Fero’s platform will recommend the lowest amount of additives required to stay in-spec.
Why Fero's faster and better:
Fero's ability to analyze complex data relationships allows for quicker identification of energy-saving opportunities. The real-time nature of the software enables immediate implementation of these insights, leading to faster results in energy efficiency improvements.
“By combining (our) process knowledge with Fero Labs’ ML tool, we not only optimized our alloy usage and saved costs – we also reduced the workload on the process engineers and made huge product capability improvements.” - Jena Kreuzer, Process Engineer, Gerdau
Root Cause Analysis for Rapid Diagnostics
Fero Labs helps engineers quickly identify and address issues in the production process:
- Fero Labs software's white-box AI allows users to explore all insights gleaned from the data, including root causes and relationships between factors.
- Engineers can identify root causes of issues 90x faster than traditional LSS methods and test solutions in Fero’s simulated environment for increased confidence prior to production deployment.
- Running diagnostics within the Fero platform streamlines engineering resources whilst enabling greater visibility and collaboration.
- One metallurgist used Fero to identify why their quality tests were providing varied results. Within minutes the platform indicated a non-linear relationship that nitrogen levels were impacting quality test results and what to change to stay in-spec. Previously, this had required two weeks for three dedicated quality engineers to find the same result.
Why Fero's faster and better:
Fero's transparent AI models provide clear explanations for their recommendations, allowing engineers to quickly understand and address the root causes of production issues. This is significantly faster than traditional trial-and-error approaches or complex data analysis methods.
“The industrial sector is undergoing a seismic shift, from the transition to renewable energy to the circularity in raw material utilization, all while grappling with increasing labor shortages. Many of the fundamental assumptions that drove efficiency in manufacturing will no longer hold. In this era of transformation, AI emerges as the linchpin propelling the industrial sector into its next stage of evolution.”
- Berk Birand, CEO & co-founder, Fero Labs
By leveraging Fero Labs' AI-powered software, steelmakers are achieving faster and more effective results across their operations, from cost savings and quality improvement to energy efficiency and problem-solving.
