Russian Steelmakers Deploy Digital Assistant to Track Heavy Machinery Tools

A new RFID-based system is transforming how a major steel plant manages and locates its key production tools.

At the Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant, engineers have rolled out a digital assistant to manage rolling mill rolls—the massive tools that shape and size steel blanks. The plant’s wide-flange beam rolling shop stores more than 2,000 rolls, and in the past, replacing them meant halting production to search and match them manually.

Now, each roll comes with a 'digital passport'—a unique RFID tag storing detailed data about the tool, including its full lifecycle. The tagging process took nearly six months, but it now allows workers to instantly access comprehensive information from a computer, including the roll’s exact location in the warehouse. The same data is available via a mobile app.

With this IT solution, inventory tracking, search, and repairs have become significantly faster and more accurate. Gone are the days when finding a roll could take hours or when logbook errors caused costly downtime. In addition to tracking location, the digital assistant monitors multiple operational parameters and can even reserve tools when needed.