SECO/VACUUM News

SECO/WARWICK Bets on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Automation, and Digitization for Heavy Industry

Heavy industry does not mean hard thinking. The SECO/WARWICK Group proves this thesis. The company treats the fourth industrial revolution not simply as a concept revolutionizing the face of today’s production but as an everyday reality.

This strategy includes automation, robotization, remote acceptance, data analysis and the use of modern technologies to plan and improve efficiency and minimize downtime. This new approach transforms traditional factories into advanced technology centers capable of delivering products faster, more efficiently, and with more precision than ever before. SECO/WARWICK, using data analysis and mathematical models, follows the global trend by offering, as part of the FURNACE/PLUS portal remote furnace management, maintenance planning, technology to predict potential failures and downtime, the capability to detect technological process anomalies, along with monitoring and optimizing energy consumption.

Innovation=Automation

According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), nearly 80 percent of companies around the world consider innovation to be one of their three main priorities this year, and 66% of them plan to increase spending for this purpose, of which 42% are ready to invest up to 10% more than before. Innovation is one of the SECO/WARWICK Group’s values, embedded in its DNA. Industry 4.0 is the guiding principle in the Group’s mentality and strategic direction, which identifies AI, automation and digitization as a priority.

“Automation has long been a key aspect of modern production, and this also applies to metal heat treatment. Automation helps companies increase furnace efficiency and reduce errors. We are developing our automation team, which is responsible for production automation and the implementation of digital solutions. In the area of furnaces, we focused on the FURNACE/PLUS platform. This includes SECO/PREDICTIVE service – an advanced, intelligent furnace control system that detects potential failures even before they occur. SECO/PREDICTIVE guarantees high effectiveness in supporting maintenance processes and ensures maximum utilization comfort. More and more of our customers have decided not only to implement intelligent systems in new installations but also to modernize existing production lines with these options. In the climate change era and the related emphasis on social responsibility, care for the environment and ecology becomes particularly important. Through the functionality contained in another FURNACE/PLUS module, SENERGY, we provide the opportunity to optimize media consumption. We use data in two ways, both internally as a manufacturer of heat treatment and metallurgy equipment through feedback to the design department, and for our customers, so that they can directly optimize technological processes having data from individual process stages at their disposal,” explains Sławomir Wachowski, Automation Director at SECO/WARWICK.

Services that revolutionize production

The SECO/WARWICK’s FURNACE/PLUS portal provides full access to current information about the furnace. The portal includes several modules, and the entire system is gradually expanded, creating one of the most comprehensive support solutions in the industry. Automation services include the SECO/PREVENTIVE module, which ensures the furnace and its individual components inspection planning and organization as part of the preventive maintenance of a given unit. Another interesting solution is the Senergy module. It allows users to analyze the consumption of electricity and nitrogen for a selected process in relation to the average or median consumption of other processes with the same or different recipe. Senergy allows users to preview performed historical processes. It is designed to work on individual furnaces as well as on entire production lines or factories. In the process table, you can see, in addition to measuring the total amount of media, the individual recipe segments and the stages of these segments, e.g., heating and holding.

SECO/WARWICK is ready for new challenges

SECO/WARWICK understands that creating services based on modern technologies is necessary. This new trend, resulting in many ways from the pandemic crisis, introduces a completely new quality of remote services. Digital transformation and the concept of a sustainable economy go hand in hand with energy and environmental challenges. In addition to making profits from their main activities, companies also want to protect the natural environment where they operate. All this is possible thanks to the FURNACE/PLUS portal – an innovative set of tools for remote equipment management in commercial heat-treating plants. It can be said that FURNACE/PLUS integrates many systems and needs in one place, facilitating and automating processes.