The Bokaro Steel Plant (BSL), a unit under the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) is all set to adapt to digital transformation. On Sunday, the steel plant has begun trail-run of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based predictive monitoring system. BSL claims that this monitoring system will help the organisation have more transparency, productivity and efficiency in core steel production process.

Chief of communication, BSL, Manikant Dhan said, “A big leap has been achieved by BSL in the strategic direction of digital transformation with the beginning of trials of the Artificial Intelligence-based Predictive Monitoring System at various shops such as blast furnace , sinter plant and hot strip mill.”

The AI monitoring system has been developed by a Hyderabad-based agency called M/S MINTO AI. Currently, the plant has installed smart sensors called SpiderSense, an Industrial Internet on Things (IOT) platform by MINTO AI, in different equipment such as cold screen motors of Sinter Plant, rotation motor for material distribution in blast furnace and crane main hoist motors at Hot Strip Mill.

Dhan said, “These sensors use AI, deep process knowledge and physics to provide operational Intelligence to plant engineers and operators which help in planning the maintenance based on predictive monitoring and alerts.”

The SpiderSense, developed by MINTO AI, was coordinated by the convener of Centre for Digital Transformation, Saurabh Singh, who is senior manager of Energy Management at BSL.

Singh said, “The system has started collecting and storing various critical data on cloud which will be modeled under an algorithm for creating alerts and under an algorithm for creating alerts and analytics. This will be able to help in machine health monitoring through digital technology.”