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Quad Infotech Implements QMOS MES System at Gerdau Whitby Plant
Nov. 22, 2011 Quad Infotech Inc. has completed implementation and commissioning of the QMOS Manufacturing Execution System (MES) at Gerdau’s Whitby plant in Ontario, Canada. This installation is part of Gerdau’s initiative to use QMOS as its corporate manufacturing system that will communicate with Gerdau’s corporate-wide SAP system.
The new system covers the plant scheduling and quality control as well as operation of meltshop, billet inventory, two rolling mills (bar and structural mills), and roll shop. Work orders for both mills are combined into casting and melting orders for the meltshop, yet remain distinct in order to separate the billets required for each of the mills and maintain billet inventory integrity. Extra functionality was added to control billet movements within the billet yard to assist with this process.
In the meltshop, transfer of scrap charge recipe and actual charge consumption along with dynamic predicted melt down energy calculation are now sent and received by QMOS, helping the mill to optimize energy costs. QMOS also incorporates its latest version of a mold tracking system that tracks the life of mold housings and mold tubes by the number of heats and/or hot metal contact time.
Further enhancements to QMOS were made for bundle weight verification. As new bundles are weighed, the weights are automatically sent to QMOS. Piece counts are verified based on unit weight using an algorithm unique to the Whitby plant, and bundle tags are printed automatically as the data is confirmed.
Gerdau is the second-largest minimill steel producer in North America with annual manufacturing capacity of over 9.0 million tons of mill finished steel products. Through its vertically integrated network of 17 minimills (including one 50%-owned minimill), 17 scrap recycling facilities, and 46 downstream operations, Gerdau primarily serves customers in the eastern two-thirds of North America.
Quad Infotech is a software engineering and design company that specializes in the development of industrial computer software for the steel industry. Quad's unique combination of steelmaking and rolling process knowledge, combined with computer software design expertise, renders Quad's Level-2 and Level-3 software products unique in the global steel minimill market.