“Industry 4.0 has been a revolution in terms of modernizing the aluminium industry from the smallest up to the biggest players”- Adriana Torres, International Business Development Manager of GHI Smart Furnaces

GHI Smart Furnaces, S.L., is a family owned company with 80 years of history that designs and supplies industrial furnaces, auxiliary equipment and associated services for technical assistance and digitalization. The company is involved in the design and manufacture of industrial furnaces, turnkey plants, SAT and 4.0 digitization. The company has supplied more than 8,000 facilities, 1,400 exported to the international market.

The sectors GHI Smart Furnaces addresses are, among others, the iron and steel industry, the aluminium and copper industry, foundries, metal workshops, shipyards, aeronautical industry, heat treatment and hot stamping companies. Adriana Torres and Pablo Fuentetaja Business Development Managers of GHI Smart Furnaces, give an insight into the GHI’s latest strategies and projects that have helped companies upgrade to the Industry 4.0 and the future of Industry 4.0 in the aluminium industry post COVID-19 in the below interview:

AlCircle: GHI Smart Furnaces is involved in the design and manufacture of industrial furnaces, turnkey plants, SAT and 4.0 digitization. Give us a heads up on how you are helping other companies implement digitization in their operations?

GHI: GHI has always been a key player in the furnaces industry, with a huge market share in the aluminium and steel industry. We have been focused in our customers’ needs to provide reliable equipment with cutting edge technologies and processes with a high degree of automation and flexibility. Innovation has been part of our DNA since GHI’s beginning and that is why we have always introduced state-of-the-art technologies in our equipment. The equipment that we supply to our customers is the core of their production plants, and its performance can affect directly the financial result of their companies.

Our solutions are fully digitized to maximize the result of our clients. The 4.0 technologies developed by GHI and embedded in our equipment provide our clients with a total real-time control and visualization of their plant in terms of production and performance. Moreover, it allows them to improve their plant operation, hence reducing the cycle times, standardizing working procedures, making faster and easier the maintenance activities of the plant and increasing the uptime.

Among other benefits, these can be translated in power and fuel savings, man-hour savings, more productivity, reduction of emissions, safer plants, and optimization of plant layouts.

At GHI we assist our clients during the process of digitization of their plant and its integration into 4.0 industry with a scalable process.  Analyse the client’s objectives and processes is the first step, the second is sensorize the equipment, and the most important, is to evolve from data-driven insights to data-driven actions. All of these are possible thanks to the analysis of a huge amount of data that is gathered by advanced sensors from GHI equipment in the client’s site which is processed by our specific developed software.

The digitization of the plant’s operations provides the plant managers and client’s decision makers with the proper feedback about what is happening in their plant and what should be done.

The technology developed by GHI is not only a software that shows figures in the screen, it is more, it gives total feedback and advice for a continuous improvement based on objective figures and the knowledge about process and equipment of both Client and GHI. That is why it goes beyond and we have called this solution “BEYOND 4.0 by GHI” .

AlCircle: Do you think post-COVID-19 adoption of Industry 4.0 shall be further accelerated by companies in their business operations?

GHI: In our view this unexpected situation is going to speed up the Industry 4.0 by two main reasons.

First is the competitiveness. Having a total control of the production process and product traceability will be fundamental to increase the competitiveness of the plants. Industry 4.0 technological pillars such as Big data, Artificial intelligence, IoT and cybersecurity will allow to reach higher levels of control, process efficiency and sustainability.

Our solutions are oriented to primary and secondary aluminium producers, and unfortunately this market, as many others, seems that is going to be hit by a decrease of demand due to the situation of the automotive and aeronautics industries. With a low price of aluminium and low demand, the companies will have to focus on being more efficient and competitive, improve the performance and reduce costs.

As previously explained our 4.0 Technology, with a real-time data capture and analysis, allows a full control of the plant with few people. The periodic feedback based on the KPIs of the plant, allows the improvement of productivity, reduce costs and increase the plant availability, hence the client becomes a more competitive company.

The second is the necessity of the remote control and automation of the plants.  We are not talking about operating a plant from home, what could be possible in some degree, but the total control of the plant from a control room with few staff will be a must. It will reduce the manual operation of the equipment, minimize the human errors, automate the production and maintenance processes, and optimize working procedures, time, and production ratios. Consequently, plants will be more efficient and safer.

AlCircle: Based on your experience, how impactful do you think has the adoption of Industry 4.0 has been for companies in the aluminium industry?

GHI: It has been a revolution in terms of modernizing the aluminium industry from the smallest up to the biggest players and will continue evolving.

The digital transformation goes beyond process and product improvement, it reaches to an evolution of strategies and management decisions. Adoption of Industry 4.0 has meant an increase in the productivity and competitiveness of companies in the aluminium industry to expand their market share. It also has helped companies to ensure sustainable production processes and enrich their plant safety.

The digitization, automation and IoT are nowadays more affordable for anyone for a global improvement. Industry 4.0 allows companies to achieve an optimization of the performance and production ratios, the reduction of costs, the control of emissions, the safety at work and the standardization of any operative aspect of the companies.

The companies are able to focus in the added value of their products instead of attending any corrective aspect of their daily production activities.

AlCircle: Brief us on some of the latest strategies and projects that have helped companies upgrade to the Industry 4.0

GHI: One of the most relevant projects is at an aluminium recycling plant in Europe. The customer had an intensive control over the consumption and the melting rate but did not know which were the different parameters that had a major impact on these variables. Although the expertise gave them some insights, they could not ensure the exact values as the opinions and knowledge vary from one operator to another.

With the integration of the 4.0 technology, including advanced sensorization, a specific developed platform for Bigdata analysis, and the expertise of GHI, we were able to upgrade and digitize their process and develop custom-made algorithms. This upgrade gave the customer the precise and exact information on which parameters of the equipment were the most important to optimize the overall process, even helping us to integrate a higher automatization on the furnaces. The customer can visualize all this value-added information in real time. Today, the customer can control the different phases in a melting cycle of their TRFs while increasing the process control, and minimize the process variability between shifts and operators, among other benefits.  The upgrade to Industry 4.0 is beyond sensorizing and capturing data, the knowledge on the process and equipment plays a very important role, this help us to perform the corresponding analysis and provide to our customers added-value information.

Another example is the upgrade to the Industry 4.0 of an aluminum die casting plant. The close relationship with the customer, the commitment and openness to share information is key for a successful project. In this case, we analyzed their process carefully and understood their fears and expectations. After capturing the relevant data, we developed machine learning algorithms to optimize the production process. The objective was to give the users improvement suggestions related to the operation of the furnaces and equipment in terms of process control, energy savings and productivity. Having a controlled process implied modifying the skimming process and change the temperature setpoints, among other activities. All these recommendations are given to ensure the optimal performance of the furnace and the overall process. Also, the upgrade to industry 4.0 has helped companies to ensure the top performance of the equipment during all of its lifecycle.

AlCircle: How effective you think does adoption of Industry 4.0 become in terms of achieving enhanced efficiency and productivity?

GHI: It is going to be fully effective, since the producers will have the real-time value-added data to make decisions immediately, and the tools to optimize their operations attending to their production needs, having a 360º view of the business, production ratios, lead times, consumptions, overall and partial equipment performances, safety and environmental aspects.

This information is already there, at their plant, they just need a solution like Beyond 4.0 by GHI, and the proper technological sensors to gather the appropriate data and translate into a common language for people that allow them to make the proper decisions.

At GHI, we design and supply smart furnaces and auxiliary equipment. In our experience, these have represented for our clients a complete control of their production process and reach higher levels of efficiency and productivity. The complete control of the production process and the capability of anticipating any stop has allowed us respond quickly and on time, thus increasing the uptime of the equipment. For our clients, one of the main advantages has been to identify the process deviations to implement actions plants and standardize the processes that result also, in higher productivity. With standard processes there is no room for errors or unexpected downtimes.

AlCircle: How can Industry 4.0 help the metal industry to overcome challenges in its refineries?

GHI: Nowadays the aluminium recycling industry must focus on several key aspects.

First, optimizing the plant performance. Among other factors, this means optimizing the metal yield by reducing the metal losses in each melting cycle. This can be achieved with the proper equipment and plant layout. Hereby, providing the plant with flexible and adequate plant equipment with 4.0 technologies, designed based on the available raw material and required final products, and ensuring a high performance of the overall plant effectiveness and few and short maintenance stops.

Second reducing the overall production costs. The optimization of the fuel and energy consumption can only be identified with real and objective data from the plant performance. This is possible with the 4.0 technologies, based on a proper data capture system and a powerful software which can focus on the specific KPIs of an aluminium plant.

Third is automation. Together with the other challenges such performance and cost, the plant automation will improve not only the production rates, but it will enhance the safety at work and sustainability. This will allow the standardization of operations and avoiding undesired operation mistakes and control any aspect of the plant such the control of emissions.

GHI provides every client with a tailor-made solution focused on all of these premises to overcome the challenges imposed by the market. Our cutting-edge Smart furnaces and auxiliary equipment with high performance ratios embedding 4.0 Technologies, and along with our technical and process advice during the plant definition process, GHI is the best partner for the aluminium producers.

AlCircle: How do you see the future of Industry 4.0 in the aluminium industry post COVID-19?

GHI: The COVID-19 issue is going to be an inflexion point. The market is going to demand more effective and technological companies in the aluminium industries to overcome the market constraint.

The aluminium producers will have to pay attention to the product features instead of being solving the daily production problems of the plant. They have to focus on adding more value and quality to their products and reduce the costs. This way be the only way to allow the companies to be more competitive in the market, and GHI proposes as a potential partner for those that are interested in this challenging modernization of the market.