A Russian Steel Plant Gives Bearings “Digital Passports”
An intelligent system monitors component wear and signals when replacements are needed.
A major stage of digital transformation has been completed at the electric steelmaking shop of Ural Steel (part of Metalloinvest) in Novotroitsk. An automated monitoring system for bearing assemblies on the continuous casting machine has replaced outdated manual record-keeping. The system predicts the remaining service life of components, enabling timely replacement and helping prevent unexpected equipment shutdowns.
Previously, plant staff tracked bearings manually, treating their service life as effectively unlimited and replacing them only after failure. Now each bearing has a unique identifier linked in the system to its rated durability, manufacturer, and batch number. During installation, a technician selects the bearing from a list and specifies the mounting location. From there, the system automatically counts heats and uses a color indicator to show the component’s wear level.
A Fundamental Shift
According to Roman Zaretsky, Ural Steel’s director of information technology, the automated bearing accounting project represents a fundamental shift from breakdown-driven maintenance to predictive resource management. By creating digital twins of equipment, the system allows metallurgists to prevent accidents before they occur.
Earlier, IT Russia reported that researchers at Novosibirsk State Technical University NETI had developed an intelligent quality-control system for industry that automatically detects cracks, dents, and corrosion spots on steel surfaces using images from a standard camera.
