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Steel Industry

CMI Industry

Automation of a stainless steel pickling line in Zhanjiagang (China)

The company

The CMI Group is an international industrial company headquartered in Liege, Belgium, and generates annual sales of approximately EUR 500 million in 22 different business areas with 2,100 employees.

As a new Chemical Pool, CMI UVK / Beugin, is assigned to the Industry business unit within the Chemicals division, where the focus is on surface treatment, material recovery and recycling. For example, UVK offers the chemical treatment part for pickling lines and acid regeneration plants. The business area also includes the treatment of acids and environmental protection. UVK provides project management and process engineering and has offices in Germany, the USA, China and Brazil. In 2004, the UVK Group was able to increase its turnover by 70% with approx. 100 employees, while the operating result was almost doubled.

Task and solution

The task was to automate a continuous stainless steel strip pickling line using the SIMATIC PCS7 process control system from Siemens.

The automation task is implemented using a server-client structure with a dedicated SIMATIC PCS7 Engineering Station and two SIMATIC PCS7 Operator Stations as operator stations.

An independent model computer is used to control the acid concentration depending on the material and process parameters. The model computer is designed to run universally in different plant configurations. The front end is implemented with SIMATIC WinCC.

Important operating data is exchanged via an open TCP/IP protocol with the Level 2 system, based on the Open-VMS platform.

The complete FAT (Factory Acceptance Test) was carried out with the support of the simulation software WinMod, with which the I/O level was simulated. This significantly reduced the time required and thus also the costs, both for the FAT and for the subsequent commissioning.

Training of the operating and maintenance personnel on the entire system was carried out at focus before commissioning.

The project compact

End customer

  •     ZPSS / Zhanjiagang Pohang Stainless Steel


Continuous stainless steel strip pickling line

  •     763,000 t/year
  •     2-6 mm thickness
  •     800-1300 mm width


Automation technology

  •     SIMTIC PCS7 process control system
  •     server/client structure
  •     1 engineering station
  •     2 operator stations
  •     CPU S7-417
  •     model computer
  •     connection to level 2