Digital Twin and IIoT in Optimizing Manufacturing Process and Quality Management
• Integrate process design data , quality specification data , equipment operational real time data , quality measurement data into a holistic end-to-end closed-loop system , enabling comprehensive online monitoring and analytics of production process and supporting product quality traceability .
• Combine digital twin and Industrial Internet technology seamlessly into a holistic platform to support such an application .
• Enable digital twin for both equipment and product alike , dynamically bind product digital twins with equipment digital twins to enabling product process and quality online tracking , monitoring and traceability .
• Combine online data and analytic technologies with Lean management and Six Sigma concepts and best practice for production process and quality management , creating a digital Lean capability .
2 . PROBLEM DOMAIN
The usage scenario involves production processes in steelmaking , an important continuous process heavy industry . More specifically , it involves the later processes such as forging and heat treatments in special steel production after raw molten steel has been casted into slabs , blooms or billets . However , the basic approach and technologies used in this scenario can be extended and applied to other similar processes in steelmaking or other similar industries as well .
2.1 Complexity in Steelmaking Processes
Steelmaking involves with many production processes that are long and complex . It takes in iron ore , coal , limestone and recycle steel as raw materials and produces the final products that include common steel ( e . g ., used in construction ) and a phalanx of special steel used for making parts for various of machines . In between , it goes through many major processes , such as coke oven , blast furnace or direct reduction furnace to produce iron , basic oxygen furnace or electric arc furnace to produce molten steel , continuous casting to produce slabs , blooms and billets as intermediate products in the primary production processes . Then in the secondary production processes , the intermediate products are reheated , forged or pressed into various forms , such as pipes , sheets , bars , rods , and other structural shapes , which may be further heat treated , surface-
- 60 - March 2021