Smart Move
POSCO ICT announced on Aug. 6 that its president Choi Du-hwan gave a special presentation on IoT and Big Data-based smart factories at the headquarters of the Hebei Steel Group so that the adoption of smart factory systems can be further accelerated. The Hebei Steel Group recorded a crude steel output of 45.8 million tons last year as the world’s third-largest steelmaker.
These days, a number of Chinese steelmakers are paying close attention to smart factories, with the Chinese government having announced its plan for the restructuring of the sector in March in order to deal with a supply glut and help improve its competitiveness. Under the circumstances, the Hebei Steel Group recently signed a technical cooperation agreement with POSCO ICT so that the latter can diagnose the processing systems of Tangshan Iron & Steel, one of its subsidiaries, and establish smart factory systems for it before spreading them to the other 15 subsidiaries.
In this context, POSCO ICT set up automatic cranes in Tangshan Iron & Steel recently. POSCO ICT is scheduled to receive royalties and provide techniques so that similar cranes can be built for the entire Hebei Steel Group. Also, it kicked off a project for real-time production monitoring and control.
“At present, we are working very closely with the world’s third-largest crude steel supplier,” president Choi explained, adding, “I’m convinced that more and more companies around the world will come to know about the excellence of our smart factory technology, and our cooperation with Hebei Steel will result in the creation of new business models worldwide.”