March 4, 2020
PAO Severstal, one of the world’s leading vertically integrated steel and
steel-related mining companies, announces plans to invest 6.7 bn roubles in IT
and digital projects, a 7% increase on 2019 investment levels.
In 2020, the Company will work on developing new solutions for managing
material flows and optimising the quality of finished products. In particular,
it will focus on building new models for customer engagement, as well as
developing solutions for integrated planning and automatic product
certification. In addition, Severstal will focus on creating automated
solutions within its upstream production division, as well as within the
Severstal-metiz production unit. In order to improve the quality of data
transmission, new technological networks will be built at the steel plant in
order to meet the requirements of Russian federal legislation and the Company’s
internal bandwidth requirements.The implementation of several ongoing
initiatives will also continue in 2020: notable examples include the adoption
of a new generation of the SAP ERP business management system within the
Company’s different divisions (called SAP S/4 HANA), as well as the further
development of Severstal’s online store.
In terms of digitalisation, Severstal will continue to develop and implement
intelligent solutions that can detect and predict future product defects, issue
recommendations on the production process, and increase production volumes by
replacing manual control of the unit with an automated control using artificial
intelligence technology. For example, in 2019, a solution which consists of
using a neural network for recognising certain defects on metal sheets was
introduced at the cross-cutting unit No. 4 in the metal finishing shop No. 2 at
the Cherepovets metallurgical plant. Additional digital solutions include using
a mathematical model to automate the middle section of continuous pickling unit
No. 3, through which half of all metal that enters cold rolling at CHerMK
passes.
Alexey Kulichenko, CFO of Severstal, commented:
“Severstal’s investment programme focuses perdominently on the financing of
development projects to deliver a significant cost advantage for basic products
in the long-term, provide customers with unique solutions, and increase the
volume of steel production. Investments in IT and digital are designed to
support and strengthen these processes. Over the past three years, we have
doubled our investment in information technology and digitalisation at
Severstal, and we have seen a significant positive economic impact as a result
of the projects we have implemented so far.”
