SmartCast: Mapping complexity of an industrial process into simplicity of a representative system with high modeling fidelity

The continuous casting process in the steelmaking chain is a complex and critical process composed of many subsystems and development of an integral monitoring and control system without mapping functional complexity into architectural complexity is a design challenge in the coupled domains of steelmaking and systems engineering. This paper describes certain novel features of the design and engineering of such a system SmartCast that captures process functional complexity under stringent requirements on evolvability, reliability and performance. This is achieved using minimally-coupled modularity in a distributed framework where isolated synchronous modules communicate through database transactions. The developed system has been established in plant production mode and is running fully in accordance with its functional and performance requirements.