Yard Management System

A. Bhattacharya, Ravindra Agarwal, Sanjit Dash,P. K. Dubey

MECON Ltd, Ranchi - 834002
Email: itranchi@meconlimited.co.in

ABSTRACT
In many Integrated Steel Plants, stock in Yard and Yard Map are maintained manually. For
maintaining furnace charging schedule (for slabs only)/Dispatch Schedule, it is required to
know not only the stock but also the exact location of each slab/coil in the yard. Hence a yard
map with stock needs to be maintained in the computer. Slabs/Coils will be identified
uniquely in the yard with its position, tonnage & quality, thus reducing the time to locate the
slabs/coils. Automatic movements of cranes during stacking/reclaiming will reduce stacking/
reclaiming times and minimize positioning errors.

The expected benefits from yard maintenance are given below.

• Proper and instant identification of slabs/coils in yard with chemistry and sales order.
• Charging in exact furnace charging sequence or as determined by Shift in charge for
slabs.
• Improved area utilization
• Better control and overview
• Automatic Movements of cranes reducing stacking/reclaiming time of slabs/coils
A Marking machine with computer interface will mark slab/coil nos. in the slabs/coils just
after the slab/coil is produced. The marking machine will receive Slab/Coil Ids from the
Production Planning and Control System through computer interface.

Keywords: Yard Management, Slab, Crane, Access Point, HHT, Yard Map, IEEE802.11h.

INTRODUCTION
Yard management System for slab is used for tracking and locating slabs in the slab yard.
Laser based crane positioning system is used for tracking and locating slabs in a yard thereby
optimizing crane movement based on 'work orders' and ensuring timely delivery of slab to
next processing line or the shipping vehicle.
Product Features
• Slab yard mapping.
• Automatic crane movement based on X, Y coordinates of the yard.
• Real-time Visibility of inventory position.
• Product grouping based on configurable parameters.
• HMI interface for visualization of yard map, crane status, work orders etc.
• Handling of work order issued from Order Management Systems/MES.
• Reports on inventory position.
• Correcting yard map using Hand Held Terminal/ Tablet PC.
• Inventory management for slab yard area.
• Material tracking based on information from level-1/level-2.
• Supervision of cooling times.
• Transport order scheduling for slab cranes and slab transfer car.

SLAB YARD MANAGEMENT

The slabs coming from slab caster is generally divided into multiple slabs of required length
as per the Order management system/MES schedule. Depending on number of splits, the slab
is marked by the marking machine before the actual gas cutting takes place. The marking
machine is connected with the marking machine PC which receives slab number from Order
Management Systems /MES.

As soon as the slabs are dispatched, the stock inventory would be decreased and on receipt,
the stock inventory would be increased.

Slab yard is divided into different storage area for storing identical slabs based on slab
dimension, heat grades, customer order etc. A slab yard map with 2-dimensional XY
coordinate system is established for each storage area identifying an entity by a unique set of
coordinates. Coordinate axis of each storage area are correlated to crane movement, where X
refers to bridge travel, Y refers t trolley travel. Slab cranes must be equipped with appropriate
distance measuring devices for XY coordinates.

After stamping the slab has to be lifted by crane for stacking. The slab number & its stacking
position (with X, Y coordinate) as decided by the slab yard computer is display in the crane
terminal through wireless LAN for information. The crane movement is automatic & is based
on laser positioning system. However, for stacking/reclaiming the hoist movement is
controlled by the crane operator.
Similarly, during reclaiming the position of slabs (including X, Y coordinate) is display to the
crane operator’s terminal for information. The crane movement is again automatic based on
laser positioning system.

Any area with automatic crane operation must be protected against unintended personnel
access. This has to be achieved with safety fences and monitored access doors. Emergency
stop buttons have to be distributed through out the yard areas. Crane control system is
required to be designed to meet the requirements of the local safety standards. This is
achieved with independent groups of sensors and independent control systems (PLCs).

The routing of slabs within the run out area is determined by the route number which is
defined by Order Management Systems /MES. The system moves the slabs to the appropriate
destinations according to the routing information, availability of destinations and actual ware
house and transport strategies.

However, in some cases manual control by human operators is required. For example: crane
maintenance, exception handling, transports to areas with access to plant personnel.

Yard Map with Manual Crane Movement

The manual slab yard management is carried out by the Slab Yard computer. Slab ID needs
to be scanned through scanner of Hand held terminal. While stacking/ reclaiming
/dispatching slab ID would be scanned through long-range scanner of Hand held terminal
(HHT). Hand Held Terminals would have wireless link (IEEE 802.11g) with Access Points.
Necessary Access Points needs to be provided in the whole slab yard to establish the wireless
communication. Access points needs to be connected to the LAN through information outlets.
Roaming support between multiple access points needs to be provided. User is able to
communicate continuously while moving throughout an area greater than that covered by
single access point.

While stacking, slab ID needs to be scanned and it comes to the Hand Held Terminal (HHT),
which is loaded with OCR (optical character recognition) facility. However, operator enters
the storage location where the slab is stacked. Operator confirms the completion of stacking
by crane through HHT. As the HHT is connected to slab yard computer through access
points, yard stock is incremented once the stacking information is entered through HHT. Slab
number is scanned again through the long-range scanner of HHT as soon as the slab is
reclaimed from the bay for dispatch. Slab yard stock is automatically decremented after the
dispatch information is fed through HHT. Necessary slab yard map is maintained
automatically in slab yard computer (system automatically take cares of stacking and dispatch
operation and maintains the map automatically).

Remote PCs needs to be provided in the stacking and reclaiming cranes of the slab yard. PC’s
communicate with the slab yard computer through access points. Before a slab is picked by
the crane operator for stacking, its number is scanned/entered by the supervisor at shop floor.
The supervisor also enters the bay number and column number of yard where the slab has to
be stacked as per Order Management Systems/MES.

Slab ID of the current slab, with bay number and column number where it has to be stacked is
displayed on the monitor of the crane operator. Crane operator knows where to stack the slab.
It minimizes the ground guidance of the crane (which as such is a difficult operation in any
steel plant).

Similarly during reclaiming supervisor scan/enter the slab no. which has to be reclaimed. Bay
and column number of the slab is automatically displayed on the monitor of the crane
operator (as the bay and column number of the slab is already known to the slab yard
computer). It substantially reduces the ground guidance operation of the crane.

An operator interface needs to be provided for initializing the slab yard map.

Yard Map with Automated Crane Movement

With automated crane movement, operator presses a button to indicate end of
stacking/reclaiming operation. Accordingly stock is updated & yard map maintained. Hand
held terminals as described above for manual operation for correction is also applicable for
yard management with automated crane operation.

Inventory Management in the System

Any slabs resides at allocation within the yard supervised by yard management system is
identified with an entry in the inventory database. The following data are stored.
• Heat number
• Slab number
• Steel grade
• Slab dimension
• Slab weight
• Order number
• Route number
• Destination of slab
• Actual location

DATA COMMUNICATIONS
Wireless LAN according to IEEE802.11h with network speeds up to 54 Mbits/s has been
established as a common solution for communication with mobile clients like cranes. Most
recent protocol standards like IEEE802. 11h features like Dynamic Frequency selection
(DFS) and Transmit power control (TPC) which support easy plant integration. Data
communication is based on TCP/IP.

RECOMMENDED HARDWARE & SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT

Hardware
• Server windows 2003 operating system for Yard Supervisory Systems.
• Standard PC grade HMI terminals.
• Touch screen Crane Terminals.
• Wireless LAN to communicate with the crane terminals and PDA (hand held terminals).
• Barcode reader.
• Laser based crane position monitoring system.
• Handheld terminal/ Tablet PC.

Systems Software
• Windows operating systems.
• Visual studio.net.
• Windows mobile technologies for application development.
• Oracle RDBMS.

Application Software Modules

• Yard map initialization/maintenance.
• Material Tracking.
• Interface with external Systems(Level 3, Order Management Systems, Level 2 etc).
• Crane automation system.
• Interface with Crane Automation System.
• Storage Management.
• Scheduling .
• HMI Interface.

BENEFITS
• Proper and instant identification of slab in the storage yard.
• Real time slab inventory management.
• Avoidance of mix-ups.
• Optimal utilization of storage capacity.
• Timely delivery of Slabs to the next line or the shipping vehicles by reducing delivery
time.
• Maximum saving of cost & time for material handling and man power.
• Optimum usage of crane.
• Automatic tracking of the Slabs from entry to exit and within the yard.
• It ensures feeding of the right slab in least possible time to the Process Line entry or
shipping vehicle.
• Improved logistics for storage and retrieval of slabs.
• Cost saving by optimized crane usage & proper utilization of storage capacity.

APPLICATIONS OF THIS METHODOLOGY

Coil Yard Management System
The material movement in a cold rolling mill is highly complex because of multiple
Processing lines with numerous feeding and evacuation paths. It is almost impossible to
handle material manually due to such logistic complexity. Yard management system helps in
the optimum coil storage, inventory control and yard management. It tracks the movements
of coils automatically right from entry to exit side of the process lines, as well as all through
the storage yards. It ensures feeding of the right coil in least possible time to the Process Line
entry and resumes tracking of the coil at line exit.

Re-bar Yard Automation System

The RF Network based computer guidance system can be used to automate re-bar yard.
CONCLUSIONS
The system not only integrates automatic tracking with the scheduled destination to curtail
material handling cost & time, but also offers automatic instruction to crane operator to
optimize total travel time & transportation cost. It is flexible enough to adapt to different
material management ambience to become an accurate and quick scheduling facilitator as an
integral part of the total system.