HMI/Scada system cuts cost of ownership

Posco, the world's leading steel producer, needed an HMI that could provide real-time data processing and an easy-to-use configuration environment.

Posco is the world's leading steel producer, and employs approximately 19,200 people.

Over the past 34 years, Posco has continuously strived to lead the way in steel production and relies primarily on state-of-the-art technology and modern management principles to remain at the top.

At present, the combined steel output of its two primary steelworks at Pohang (899 hectares) and Gwangyang (1253 hectares), totals 28 million tonnes and includes hot rolled coil and plates, cold rolled sheets, plates and wire rods, flat rolled magnetic steel sheets and strips, electrical steel sheets and stainless steel products.

Posco's Pohang Works had been operating 67 plant processes, controlled by 5000 control systems including DCS, PLCs and 1400 HMI workstations.

The problem was there were over 30 different vendors supplying control systems with many different software tools, which were unable to talk to each other - this made maintenance time-consuming and costly.

As each individual HMI system was controlled by a PLC, DCS or process computer, data couldn't be monitored simultaneously and so more operators than necessary were needed.

Posco's objective was to replace the legacy and proprietary control systems with a new, totally integrated and reliable open standards hardware/software solution which would allow the plant processes to be monitored and controlled securely from a PC-based HMI/Scada system.

Posco's business objectives were to lower total cost of ownership by reducing maintenance costs as well as investment costs for future technologies.

They also sought to surpass an annual production of 30 million tonnes of steel per annum, by increasing plant performance and producing the best quality steel products in the world.

The HMI system should integrate tightly with Posco's EIC systems.

Steel making plant processes run 24 hours, 7 days a week and whenever the control system had a problem it went down, causing the factory to lose a lot of money.

It was therefore very important to have the reliability of an open control system that guaranteed hot backup functionality between the online and backup servers.

"We sought an HMI which could provide real-time data processing and an easy-to-use configuration environment", said Mr Park, Posco.

To handle the vast quantity of data and I/O points, Posco wanted a company with a reputation for delivering on large scale, complex projects with extensive experience in the metals industry, that could offer a highly reliable system offering millisecond trending and high speed alarms.

"We had performed benchmarking and tested multiple Scada packages".

"For us, the CitectScada package was the only system which could meet all of our strict criteria; offering redundancy, true client server architecture, high performance, millisecond real-time trending, great flexibility and all-in-one package".

"It's unique, scalable architecture provided Posco with the ability to phase the implementation over a number of years; reducing risk and configuration costs", said Park.

Citect, CiTopia and Core delivered a fully EIC-integrated HMI/Scada system which has vastly improved performance through effective integration of the line operations allowing all process, quality and other miscellaneous data to be monitored simultaneously using a common, easy-to-understand graphical interface.

The CitectHMI/Scada system offers real-time data management and data integration, auto-voice announcement of events and alarms.

It also offers data analysis with millisecond trending which enables Posco to improve quality consistency and reduce wastage for example through the accurate analysis of coil length.

The Citect system has outstanding reliability and stability that enable changes to be made to the plant processes while it is in operation.

Posco has made significant cost savings in total cost of ownership, through reduction in operator and maintenance costs by 30% per annum.

Posco also expects a reduction in investment costs by 41% due to CitectHMI/Scada's scalability and availability.

Several control stations have been centralised into one which has reduced the number of operators needed.

Posco has also increased production because the down-time has been reduced to zero during plant operation time.

Posco is standardising on CitectHMI/Scada across Pohang Works with roll out over the hot rolling mill, plate and continuous electrolytic galvanising line currently underway.

The future automation in Posco extends to changing the main plant processes from operating on a one man per workstation basis, with only some parts of the utility plants under unmanned control - to a completely automated plant at each step.

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