Hot strip mills
Roughing and finishing train setup, inter-stand tension and looper control, finishing and coiling temperature, and cobble avoidance on the run-out table.
Solutions
Autonomy for every line in the flat-metals plant
Hot strip, tandem and reversing cold mills, plate, anneal and temper, pickling and coating, and the coil-handling floor between them. Same platform, different physics, different models.
Hot strip & plateCold rolling & finishingCoating & handling
exit gauge1.982 mm
flatness I-unit3.1 IU
F5 roll force18.4 MN
interstand tension9.6 MPa
chatter margin0.24 · safe
anneal energy-11.4%
pass 6/7autonomy: assisted-writetwin delta 0.004 mmaudit id 7f31c
Producers running Steelira across hot, cold and finishing lines
NordStrip Steel
Kalyon Metals
Ferrata Group
Aurum Flat Rolled
Meridian Coil
Volkan Çelik
By process
Start where the money is
Every plant has one line where a point of prime yield is worth more than the whole subscription. We help you find it, then land there.
Cold rolling
Tandem and reversing mills held to micron gauge through acceleration, threading and tail-out, with shape control that anticipates thermal crown.
Plate mills
Crown, wedge and flatness control on heavy plate, with TMCP paths planned for property compliance on structural and line-pipe grades.
Anneal & temper
Continuous anneal lines, batch anneal and skin-pass control tuned to land mechanical properties without over-processing.
Pickling & coating
Pickling line speed and acid control, galvanizing pot and air-knife control, coating-weight targeting that stops paying for over-coat.
Coil handling
Robotic strapping, sampling and lab logistics so sample-to-result time stops gating the next campaign.
Deep dives
What changes on each line
The loop is the same. The physics, the sensors and the failure modes are not.
Hot strip mills
A slab goes from 250 mm to 2 mm in seconds while roll force, looper tension, temperature and metallurgy interact non-linearly. Steelira plans the reduction split and TMCP path from chemistry and target grade, then holds the finishing train against the twin's predicted profile rather than the last coil's.
- Threading and tail-outThe two moments that generate most off-gauge metres, handled predictively.
- Cobble avoidanceRun-out-table and looper instability precursors caught early enough to slow down instead of wreck a coil.
- Coiling temperatureHeld within the window that decides microstructure on hot-rolled automotive grades.
exit gauge1.982 mm
flatness I-unit3.1 IU
F5 roll force18.4 MN
interstand tension9.6 MPa
chatter margin0.24 · safe
anneal energy-11.4%
pass 6/7autonomy: assisted-writetwin delta 0.004 mmaudit id 7f31c
Cold rolling
Micron gauge across a mile of strip is a control problem the AGC solves reactively and a metallurgy problem it cannot see at all. Steelira predicts gauge deviation from entry profile, roll thermal state and lubrication behaviour, and pre-empts it — while shape control keeps edge-wave and centre-buckle out of the coil.
- Predictive AGCAnticipates the tail rather than chasing it.
- Chatter marginThird-octave precursors monitored continuously with an explicit margin the pulpit can see.
- Roll campaignRoll changes scheduled from measured wear and thermal crown, not calendar rules.
exit gauge1.982 mm
flatness I-unit3.1 IU
F5 roll force18.4 MN
interstand tension9.6 MPa
chatter margin0.24 · safe
anneal energy-11.4%
pass 6/7autonomy: assisted-writetwin delta 0.004 mmaudit id 7f31c
Anneal, temper and coating
Properties and coating spec are decided by a thermal path and a knife gap, and both are usually run to a recipe written years ago. Steelira controls line speed, furnace zones, skin-pass elongation and coating weight against a predicted property and coating outcome per coil.
- Property assurancePredicted yield strength, tensile and elongation per coil, before the lab confirms.
- Coating economicsCoating weight held just inside spec instead of comfortably above it.
- EnergyFurnace dispatch optimised against the actual schedule, including gaps and grade changes.
exit gauge1.982 mm
flatness I-unit3.1 IU
F5 roll force18.4 MN
interstand tension9.6 MPa
chatter margin0.24 · safe
anneal energy-11.4%
pass 6/7autonomy: assisted-writetwin delta 0.004 mmaudit id 7f31c
By role
Three buyers, three arguments
The plant director signs it, the roller trusts it and IT/OT approves it. All three have to be true.
Plant / Operations Director
Prime yield, energy, throughput and consistency, expressed as a hard ROI in a paid pilot with a baseline you agreed before we arrived. No transformation programme, no eighteen-month integration.
Rolling / Process Engineer
The agent proposes, you dispose — until you decide otherwise. Every recommendation shows the coil history and the twin's reasoning, and your corrections are the training signal that makes it better.
Quality / Metallurgy Manager
Predicted gauge, flatness, surface and properties per coil, with an immutable audit trail that survives a customer claim and cites the grade spec it reasoned from.
ROI model
How the wedge pays for itself
A single point of prime yield on a 1.2 Mt/yr line is worth far more than a Line subscription. That asymmetry is the entire commercial argument — and we make you prove it in shadow mode before you pay for autonomy.
1.5 ptsTypical prime-yield uplift target on the wedge line
8%Reheat or anneal energy reduction target at constant tonnage
30%Fewer off-gauge metres per coil at head and tail
6 moTypical payback on a Line subscription at 1.2 Mt/yr
[PLACEHOLDER] Targets used for pilot design; actual results are contracted per site against your measured baseline.
Engagement
From first call to autonomous control
A deliberately slow ramp on purpose: trust before autonomy.
- STEP 01
Mill assessment
90 minutes with your rolling, quality and OT leads. We map the line, the systems and the losses, and pick the wedge workflow.
- STEP 02
Shadow mode
Six to eight weeks reading only. We baseline prime yield, energy and scrap, and score the model against your actual coils.
- STEP 03
Assist mode
The agent recommends; your engineer approves every move. Accuracy and ROI are proven on real production.
- STEP 04
Graduated autonomy
Low-risk loops go auto first, then the mill — each promotion gated on measured performance and signed by your team.
Fit
Works with the automation you already bought
Steelira does not replace your Level-2, your AGC or your inspection system. It makes them act together.
Level-2 & control
- Primetals Level-2
- SMS X-Pact
- Danieli Automation
- TMEIC mill drives
- ABB Ability
- Siemens SIMATIC / PCS 7
Gauge, shape & surface
- IMS X-ray gauges
- Vollmer thickness
- Shape-meter rolls
- ISRA Vision surface
- Parsytec inspection
- Thermal line scanners
Plant systems
- Level-3 MES / QMS
- SAP PP-PI
- OSIsoft PI / AVEVA
- OPC UA & Classic
- Historians (IP.21, Canary)
- CMMS / EAM
Proof
Results across process types
“We ran Steelira in shadow for eight weeks on the tandem mill. It called eleven of the twelve off-gauge tail events before our AGC reacted. That was the moment the argument ended.”
“Our best roller retires in two years. Steelira is the first system that captured how he sets up a hard automotive grade — and then explained why, with the coil history to back it.”
“Prime yield moved 1.7 points on the galvanizing line and reheat gas fell double digits. Nothing else we bought this decade did both.”
Solutions FAQ
Common questions before a pilot
Usually not for the wedge workflow. Most lines already have gauges, shape-meters, pyrometers and surface inspection. Where a line is genuinely blind — often vibration for chatter work — we specify the minimum addition, typically one accelerometer per stand.
The one with the highest product of tonnage, coil value and known loss. In practice that is usually the tandem cold mill or the galvanizing line, but the mill assessment answers it with your own numbers.
No. Steelira writes setpoints through your Level-2, inside clamps your engineers set, and falls back deterministically to your existing setup on any watchdog timeout. The AGC keeps doing its job; Steelira stops handing it problems.
Aluminium flat-rolled is supported on the same platform with different property and surface models. Long products are on the roadmap and out of scope today.
Find your wedge workflow
Bring your rolling, quality and OT leads to a 90-minute mill assessment. You leave with a ranked list of workflows by expected payback — whether or not you buy anything.