Promoting safety production, Baosteel promotes intelligent factories, reduces hazardous positions, and improves working environment | Robotics | Baosteel
The scorching summer is often a period of high incidence of production safety accidents. The intelligent factory solution of Baoshan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. provides a way to achieve essential safety in production operations. This is a clever trick introduced by various units in recent years to promote safety production during the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions recently held a meeting to promote safety production.
In the No. 2 blast furnace workshop of Baosteel's Baoshan Base Ironmaking Plant, a "big hole" was left on the furnace where the molten iron had just been discharged. An unmanned small forklift was seen transporting 600 kilograms of gunpowder to the upper material area. Subsequently, the gunpowder filling robot automatically grabbed and filled it through infrared scanning, and then aimed at the "big hole" at the iron outlet to add gunpowder to seal the "hole", allowing the blast furnace to continue smelting the next batch of molten iron.
Cannon mud filling robot
Wang Xuechao, the head of the front operation of the No. 2 blast furnace, introduced that in the past, the entire operation process was manually completed, requiring two to three people to carry heavy objects in a high temperature environment of over 50 degrees Celsius. The refueling operation also needs to pay attention to safety risks such as gas. But now, only one person needs to sit in front of the blower and blow the wind, "supervising" the fully automated operation of the robot.
"In recent years, there have been significant changes in the workshop, and everyone clearly feels that the working environment is improving and dangerous positions are decreasing one by one." Wang Xuechao said that recently, workshop staff are debugging automated temperature measurement and sampling equipment. After the official application, employees no longer need to wear heavy flame-retardant clothing and protective masks to work in high-temperature environments.
The changes in a workshop are also a microcosm of the development of the entire enterprise. Within Baosteel Group, robots are affectionately referred to as "Baoluo", serving as assistants and partners for employees. In the past two years, Baosteel Group has actively implemented the "Ten Thousand Baoluo Robots on Duty Plan" of China Baowu Group Company, vigorously promoting the "Four Unifications" work of centralized operation rooms, robots for all operation positions, remote operation and maintenance, and online service links. Through machine replacement, the production site has gradually become less manned and unmanned.
Baosteel Group gradually realizes the reduction and unmanned production site through machine replacement of personnel
Of course, building an intelligent factory is not easy. During this process, Baosteel Group has achieved a series of technological breakthroughs: in 2018, Baoshan Base invested in multifunctional robots for steelmaking and continuous casting, achieving the first four in one continuous casting operation in China; In 2020, the Qingshan Base launched the first domestic sleeve loading robot, unbinding robot, and laser engraving robot; In 2022, Dongshan Base implemented automation transformation of thick plate sample processing and launched the world's first intelligent thick plate sample processing system
Behind these technological breakthroughs, a significant amount of time and real money are required. Therefore, in practice, there is a great deal of attention paid to which aspects need to be transformed first. Chen Xianshun, Vice Chairman of Baosteel Union, introduced that in the steel industry, robots are the first to replace 3D positions, which refer to Dangerousness, Dusty, and Difficult. Because "the purpose of intelligent manufacturing is not only to increase production value and speed up, but also to keep employees away from these dangerous and harmful positions."
As of now, Baosteel Group has more than 1250 "Baoluo" robots for production, gradually connecting the changes at each point into a line. More than 2800 manual workers have been liberated from repetitive, heavy, and harsh environments, promoting a qualitative leap in essential safety.
Under the concept of promoting safety production, Baosteel Group also vigorously promotes the construction of urban steel plants, providing employees with a higher standard of healthy working environment. At present, the largest enclosed unmanned material yard in China has been built, and more than 1080 transportation belts with a length of 160 kilometers have been closed and renovated to comprehensively reduce dust emissions. In addition, the enterprise has established an integrated platform for emission control, installed a large number of suspended particulate matter monitoring, volatile organic compound monitoring systems, and high-definition video systems, etc., to achieve synchronous emission control throughout the entire process of "production governance monitoring".
"Walking inside the factory area now, I can't feel the dust in the air at all," said a manager at Baosteel. The safety and health of employees are actually the wealth of the company. Nowadays, more and more employees have a better working environment, dedicating their energy to higher value-added products and services, significantly improving labor efficiency, and in turn creating more value for enterprises and society.
