Usiminas has inaugurated its Integrated Operation Center, considered one of the world's most modern steel mills. The investment is located at Ipatinga Plant and represents, above all, gains in competitiveness for the company.
The center provides a dynamic integration among steel mill key areas: Logistics (supply and disposal), Internal Transportation, Production Planning and Control, Steel Works, Hot Rolling, Cold Rolling and Integrated Control.
Each of these work units has their representatives in the Control Room, where everyone remains in contact, interacting and controlling the company's strategic points through a video wall. This way, you can track the entire production process of steel, from the entry of raw materials to the dispatch of products, which allows greater agility in the exchange of information, rapid decision making, improving point’s identification, rapid reaction capacity and global vision of processes.
Mr Marco Antônio Castello Branco president of Usiminas said that "With this center, we turned into reality, the aspiration of gathering even more, the several strategic areas on the same network of interaction. A differential that will allow an expertise even more efficient for our operational lines, as well as gains in speed in the delivery of products."
He added that "The new center is another Usiminas investment in innovation, a measure which applies new market prospects to the company’s activities. We cannot dismiss investments in the modernization of our power plants that will generate greater value for our operations and show with effectiveness to Usiminas' business partners the portfolio strength of its products and services."
About the interface among areas, Mr Leonardo Zenobio programming and production control manager of Ipatinga Plant explains that all these actions will result in even more efficient service to customers of Usiminas since interaction offers even greater agility to the production process. He added that "This way, we do not lose the opportunity to use the industrial assets, providing operational cost reduction, in a unique environment where actions convergence, ensure delivery deadline of the final product"
