China News Service Hebei Qian'an, November 11 (Reporter Liu Wenwen) At present, China's steel industry is facing many challenges such as demand changes, market adjustments, and product transformation. The 8 Steel Digital Innovation Conference was held in Qian'an, Hebei Province on the 2023th, and the experts and scholars at the meeting believed that industrial upgrading is imminent, and China's steel industry must fix the "compulsory course" of digitalization.
With the rapid development of a new generation of information technology, promoting the digital transformation of the industry has become an important measure for the steel industry to reduce costs, increase efficiency and enhance core competitiveness. Zhang Haideng, deputy director of the Department of Raw Materials Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, said that the level of digitalization and intelligence in China's steel industry is gradually improving, and the integration and development of digital technologies such as 5G and industrial Internet with the steel industry is accelerating.
The steel industry is the mainstay of China's economic construction. Chen Hongfei, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of China Iron and Steel Association, pointed out that after years of development, China's iron and steel industry has obvious advantages in terms of production capacity, green development, process equipment, and digital transformation development. With the rapid development of science and technology and changes in the global market, digital innovation has brought unprecedented opportunities for the steel industry to become high-end, intelligent and green.
According to Wang Guodong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the demand for digital transformation in the steel industry is extremely strong. The steel industry has abundant data resources and has great potential to realize industrial digitalization, and it also provides the best scenarios for applying digital technologies and digital transformation.
"Data science and digital technology can support the steel industry to solve the 'black box problem'", Wang Guodong further analyzed that the steel industry is a large and complex process industry, and huge uncertainty is a major challenge in the steel production process. All processes in the whole process are "black boxes", and real-time information is extremely lacking. Moreover, each unit of the iron and steel industry is controlled by an island, and the interface between the units has not yet been seamless and accurate. "In the face of the 'black box' and serious uncertainty of the whole process, the best solution is the digital transformation of the steel industry."
"Enabled by digital innovation, steel is reborn." Song Xiangdang, deputy director of the Hebei Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, said that Hebei's crude steel production capacity accounts for about one-fifth of the country and one-tenth of the world. From January to September this year, the added value of the iron and steel industry in Hebei Province increased by 1.9%, accounting for 13.2% of the above-scale industry. Digitalization is not a "choice question" for Hebei's iron and steel industry, but a "compulsory course" related to survival and long-term development.
With the continuous advancement of digital transformation, the digital transformation of leading and backbone iron and steel enterprises has achieved remarkable results. Fan Tiejun, president of the Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, pointed out that more than 80% of domestic iron and steel enterprises have been promoting intelligent manufacturing, and the leading and backbone iron and steel enterprises have basically completed the four-level system of top-down vertical integration of basic automation, process control system, production execution system and manufacturing management system at the production line level.
It is worth noting that at present, the unbalanced and insufficient digital development of China's steel industry is more prominent, such as the digital foundation is still relatively weak, and the foundation of industrial digital intelligence needs to be further strengthened. In the face of challenges such as demand changes, market adjustments, and product transformation, how can steel companies lead the new digital era and recreate new advantages of steel?
In Zhang Haideng's view, iron and steel enterprises should take intelligent manufacturing as the main direction, promote the high-end, intelligent and green transformation of steel production process and management decision-making, promote the quality and efficiency of enterprises, and accelerate the formation of new quality productivity.
"There are no backward industries, only backward enterprises", Song Xiangdang believes that as far as Hebei is concerned, it is necessary to make good use of the radiation effect of Beijing and Tianjin to achieve innovation-driven development. Innovation and development will inevitably inject digital "new fuel", replace it with network "new wheels", and install intelligent "new engines" into the huge combat vehicle of Hebei's iron and steel industry.
Liu Fenggang, assistant general manager of Shougang Co., Ltd., said that there are many iron and steel enterprises in China, and these enterprises have formed an innovative joint force to jointly explore and learn from each other's intelligent and common technologies, which will be conducive to promoting the digitalization process of the entire industry. (ENDS)