Digital transformation of Chinese iron and steel enterprises: Problems and countermeasures

(1) The construction of industry standards and application scenarios for digital transformation and upgrading lags behind

There is no universal standard and scenario for the digital development of China's steel industry, which affects the in-depth promotion of the digital transformation of the steel industry. Although the iron and steel industry is huge, various enterprises are also doing a variety of digital transformation efforts, but the previous information transformation is based on different data standards, which is easy to produce information islands, restricting the mining of data value. At the same time, the entire steel industry has not been relatively successful and universal digital scenarios, making the practice of digital transformation between steel enterprises is very different, and the uncertainty is also very large, restricting the improvement of the overall level of digital transformation of the steel industry.

(2) The foundation of intelligent manufacturing needs to be consolidated, and the breadth and depth need to be expanded

At present, the intelligent control system model of smelting in China's iron and steel industry is still poor in adaptability to changes in external factors, and can not form closed-loop control. The level of whole-process planning and scheduling needs to be strengthened, most production control needs manual intervention, and the dynamic collaborative scheduling of upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, production - energy - logistics - marketing - services also needs to be improved. From the perspective of breadth and depth, the current digital and intelligent transformation and development of China's iron and steel industry production process is mainly focused on production process optimization, energy consumption reduction, technological innovation and other aspects, and the focus of transformation and development is still around process-based intelligent manufacturing, large-scale personalized customization, remote operation and maintenance services, etc. The penetration rate of digital technology for the entire process of steel production, operation and management is still low, and the breadth and depth of intelligent manufacturing need to be expanded. According to data, as of 2021, nearly 80% of metallurgical enterprises in China have not achieved system integration.

(3) Lack of control of core intellectual property rights, and the problem of "stuck neck" is still prominent

At present, the key technologies and core basic components in the field of intelligent manufacturing in China are still dependent on imports, the core patented technology is also lack of accumulation, and the key common technology breakthroughs in intelligent manufacturing of steel are weak, especially the industrial Internet data integration technology, the key technology of steel manufacturing modeling and simulation, and the key technology of multi-objective collaborative optimization of steel production process are still prominent. So far, China's iron and steel industry in the information system and physical system development, management, integration, innovation capacity is still relatively weak, has not yet formed a highly collaborative technology innovation system mechanism, original innovation research and development investment and investment efficiency need to be improved.

Fourth, suggestions for accelerating the digital transformation of the steel industry

Digital transformation is a profound revolution in industrial development mode and a long-term systematic project. To accelerate the digital transformation of the steel industry, improve the level of digital development of China's steel industry, and promote the deep integration of digitalization, networking, and intelligence with industrial development, it is necessary to be problem-oriented and goal-oriented, rely on new infrastructure support, network sharing and intelligent collaboration, and create a new model of smart service and a third-party steel cloud platform. Build a standard system for intelligent manufacturing in the steel industry, and actively carry out research on industry application standards and key common technologies.

(1) Improve the industry digital standard system, and give play to the leading role of standards

Digital transformation, standards first. The standardization of specifications is an important basis for realizing digital transformation. The lag in the development of current industry standards, especially the inconsistency of data standards, has hindered the smooth advancement of the digital transformation of China's steel industry to a large extent. Only by accurately formulating and applying industry standards for the digital transformation of the steel industry can the data of steel enterprises on the cloud platform be effectively used, stimulate the potential of data elements, and make the digital transformation of the steel industry stable and long-term. To this end, it is necessary to strengthen the research on digital standards for the iron and steel industry, accelerate the construction of digital standards for the iron and steel industry, give full play to the leading role of industry organizations such as iron and steel industry associations and leading backbone enterprises, and establish and improve unified data norms, data dictionaries and data language systems from the characteristics of the iron and steel industry. Promote the formation of systematic standards covering intelligent raw material farms, intelligent sintering, intelligent iron making, intelligent steel making, intelligent steel rolling, intelligent production and marketing flow, improve the relevant systems for the opening of industry digital standards, strengthen the application of standards in the steel industry, develop technologies and scenarios that are compatible with the steel industry ecosystem, and improve the breadth and depth of the integration of data and reality in the steel industry. Promote the digital transformation and upgrading of the steel industry with standards.