Plant-wide common MMI for the steel industry

Any useful discussion of man-machine interface (MMI) for the steel industry requires the reader to make a mental picture of the environment. The other piece of essential background knowledge is the current trend toward business re-engineering and its particularly dramatic impact on steel production. This paper describes in broad terms the nature of the marketplace, the processes controlled, and the role filled by automation in examples representing the best of the old way and the best of the new with the difference largely the result of business re-engineering. They introduce a conceptual product, a plant-wide MMI and justify its use. The specific issues of cost, safety, maintenance, spares and product quality are examined with emphasis on the impact of using the new product. The recent developments in technology: client-server architecture; PC based workstations; economical GUI tools; and extremely fast hardware are discussed as the basis of the ability to design a new generation of whole-plant automation