Information Technology at EVRAZ

2024

Allocation of 1 billion rubles for the training of engineers in the field of digital metallurgy and robots

In early December 2024, the Evraz metallurgical holding announced the allocation of ₽1 billion for the creation of an engineering education system in educational institutions of the Urals and Siberia over the next five years.

According to Kommersant, the funds will be used to open new laboratories, purchase equipment, support teaching staff and scholarship programs at partner universities.

Evraz invests about 1 billion rubles in the creation and development of an engineering education system in the Urals and Siberia

The company, together with the Nizhny Tagil branch of UrFU and the Siberian State Industrial University, has developed the Engineering Bachelor program in five areas: digital metallurgy, heat power, technological machines, electric power and mechatronics with robotics.

The educational process is built on teamwork on projects to solve specific production problems. Students study modern disciplines taking into account the latest technological changes in industry. In 2024, 147 applicants entered the program.

To train future specialists, Evraz opened engineering classes in 12 schools, where students undergo an in-depth program in physics, mathematics and drawing under the guidance of company experts and teachers of partner universities.

Additionally, the Evraz Career Academy was launched with free courses for preparing for the Unified State Exam in specialized subjects. It is planned to extend the engineering class program to students in grades 7-9.

The new education system is designed to provide the holding's enterprises with practice engineers capable of working with high-tech equipment and solving modern production problems.

A feature of the undergraduate program is the possibility of choosing a specialization at the beginning of the third year, which allows students to more consciously approach the definition of the future professional trajectory.^[1]

How to get the economic effect of digital transformation at the level of world leaders. Evraz experience

Evraz aims to gain direct economic impact from digital transformation projects. [1] Artyom Natrusov, Vice President for IT Evraz, spoke about how the company achieves this at the TAdviser Digital Transformation Day conference.

We are talking, first of all, about digital transformation in production - this accounts for about 80% of the effect that the company receives from digital transformation, and now also "good projects" have gone in sales - in e-commerce. The company, in particular, has a site where products are sold not only by Evraz itself, but also by other metal products, and this is perhaps the best site in the metal trade, said Artyom Natrusov.

Artyom Natrusov at TAdviser Digital Transformation Day on September 24

Evraz focuses on "beacons" - on leaders in the global metallurgical business, such as Baowu Steel Group, Tata Steel. The bottom line is that through digital transformation projects, Evraz can either reduce cost or increase production volumes, and do so without a large CAPEX.

One of the Baowu Steel Group subsidiaries has an approach to digital transformation so that as many people as possible can be removed from production from workshops. For example, they combine all the consoles and take them outside the workshops. But these projects require a large CAPEX. And in Evraz, the approach is not the same: the basis of digital transformation in a company is a lot of relatively small projects with a small CAPEX, with small investments, which in total have a significant economic effect.

At the same time, Evraz took a closer look at the experience of the aforementioned Baowu Steel Group subsidiary and also begins a couple of projects to unite management posts and take them outside production. This affects both reducing the number of people and reducing injuries.

Reducing the number of people for Russian production is very important, because it is becoming more and more difficult to staff in the right amount in places of presence. In this regard, such a vector will also be present in Evraz, explained Artyom Natrusov.

And among the projects with a low CAPEX and a large economic effect, for example, a hint on the yield of ferroalloys (iron alloys with other elements, which are used mainly for deoxidation and alloying of steel). According to Evraz Vice President for IT, the costs here are minimal, but due to the fact that the flows are huge, even a fraction of the savings percentage, they give great effects.

Another example of the project is a digital assistant to the SPS (ball rolling mill) foreman.

According to the results of 2021, Evraz achieved the economic effect of digital transformation of $150 million in annual terms, the company calculated. This rate remained in 2022, and in 2023-2024 the rate slightly decreased, taking into account the preservation of the effects on cost and the reduction of the effects on volume increase. But at the same time, he remains at the level of world leaders. The instability that has arisen in the country has affected some of the effects, but the bulk of the projects remain relevant.

The company plans to adhere to the pace that it has gained every year, but now it is somewhat hindered by the fact that additional production is not particularly needed, since exports have become more difficult. Moreover, the point is not only in sanctions, but also in the fact that there is a crisis in steel overproduction in China, which accounts for half of the world's steel production. And since the effect on volume is not too necessary now, the effect on cost remains.

At the same time, it is important to maintain the engraftability of products and systems at the desired level.

We are introducing 100-150 projects per year, and then these systems need to be supported so that every next year they continue to receive this effect, and when I talk about these large indicators of $150 million per year, this is the effect for the year, and then it lasts, albeit with some drop, - explained the top manager of Evraz.

Accordingly, internal processes are needed that would allow maintaining the engraftability of products and systems.

Evraz launched a unified IT furnace management system to save millions of rubles

At the end of May 2024, it became known that the metallurgical and mining company Evraz had introduced a unified IT furnace management system. The new solution saves time while reducing costs by millions of rubles.

It is noted that earlier the masters of the lime burning workshop had to go to the remote control to set up the furnaces. The data of each furnace was collected for recorders, but control was difficult due to the lack of a single IT system. In addition, there was a possibility of incorrect equipment configuration due to the inability to control parameters in real time. As a result, a decrease in lime quality could be observed.

Evraz Mining Company Implements Unified IT Furnace Management System

As part of the new project, the recorders were connected to the technological network. This updates the data every 4 hours and accumulates in a single database. The information can be viewed in real time, while responsible employees are promptly notified of deviations in the operation of the equipment. The implemented IT system made it possible to improve the quality of the gas-air mixture and increase the amount of calcium and magnesium oxides in lime. In addition, the consumption of metal chips and ferroalloys in converter shops decreased. In general, the level of automation has improved, and annual cost savings are estimated at 12 million rubles. A similar project was also implemented in the coke workshop.

It is noted that digital transformation continues to be one of the priorities of Evraz's corporate business strategy, since it allows the enterprise to increase operational efficiency. In 2023, the focus was on predictive analytics projects for equipment and monitoring and diagnostic systems. The direct economic effect of digital initiatives amounted to 3.3 billion rubles.^[2]

2023

Evraz calculated the economic effect of digitalization: more than 8.7 billion rubles in two years

In 2023, the direct economic effect of digital projects in Evraz amounted to 3.3 billion rubles, and in 2022 - over 5.4 billion rubles. This is stated in the report on the sustainable development of Evraz, published in early May 2024. It also shows the structure of economic effects from digital transformation, broken down by archetypes of projects in 2023 in percent:

Approx. 1: Digital Performance Management is a problem-solving solution that helps identify, prioritize, and address the biggest loss issues, resulting in lower costs, higher revenue, and better service levels.

Evraz specialists distinguish nine archetypes of digital transformation tools that underlie the internal classification of digital projects.

Every year Evraz sets itself a monetary digital transformation target, which includes sub-targets at the level of re-distribution of mills along the entire production chain. And when selecting digital projects, priority is given to those that can have a direct economic effect.

This is an important criterion, since the company seeks to create high profitability from its activities, at the level of world industrial leaders in digital transformation, Evraz points out in its report.

The source of initiatives is the Evraz Idea Factory platform, where employees can send their proposals related to digital transformation and Technology Risk Management (TRM).

For the third year in a row, Evraz has been implementing projects as part of a comprehensive digital transformation program. During this time, 332 digital projects have been implemented jointly by the business and IT divisions of the company. In 2023, the focus was on predictive equipment analytics and monitoring and diagnostic systems (SMD) projects.

In the direction of predictive analytics (PA), in particular, a total of 27 projects were launched and the following measures were carried out:

• improving the methodology for continuous improvement of production efficiency;
• development and maintenance of development roadmaps of SMD and PA for critical assets in order to optimize risks;
• launch of 12 projects of SMD and PA in digital transformation;
• scaling of the previously implemented commercial platform "Smart Signal";
• further development of monitoring centers as part of the "Repairs" function.

In the reporting period, the company, among other things, focused on technologies such as Data Governance (data management). The key project implemented in this area was the implementation of the business glossary and data catalog.

Evraz has studied various options for protecting Windows. The most modern information security tools did not give a WOW effect

At the TAdviser SummIT Cybersecurity conference, Andrey Nuikin, Head of the Information Systems Security Department of the Evraz Group, spoke about the results of a comparison of various methods for protecting end devices, which was commissioned by Evraz by AXXTEL.

The purpose of the study was to identify situations in which Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) technology provides advantages over classic antivirus. It turned out that out of the 30 most popular hacker techniques, the correctly configured operating system Windows one independently reflects 8, the antivirus - 18, together - they reflect 20 attacks, EDR - reflects 4 more, and six pass the specified levels of protection.

The research methodology suggested the following options for installing protection tools: default Windows with antivirus (Kaspersky Endpoint Security), default Windows with EDR (Kaspersky EDR), Windows with enhanced security settings adopted by EVRAZ, in two versions - with a local administrator and without. Kaspersky Lab products were used because EVRAZ has already deployed them to protect workstations and their work in conjunction with corporate settings of companies has already been tested.

The purpose of the study was not to select different EDR options (therefore, the one that had already been deployed in the AXXTEL laboratory was used), but to check the additional capabilities of the EDR technology itself compared to antivirus.

As a result of the study, it was confirmed that Windows with a local administrator is worse protected than with centralized management through the directory - two reflected attacks compared to eight.

Windows with correctly selected security settings and installed antivirus reflects up to two-thirds of the most popular attacking techniques.

EDR additionally provides discovery and response for Remote System Discovery, hidden use of the Windows Command in PowerShell, collection and analysis of internal infrastructure data (Run BloodHound from local disk), and System Information Discovery. In fact, these are techniques that are identified using User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) mechanisms.

Techniques that are not reflected at the level of end devices are the following: network port scanning by different methods, organizing data leakage by different methods, guessing passwords and embedding malware in the operating system boot procedure. Moreover, the last technique can be identified by EDR, but the product must be correctly configured for this. Other attack methods can be identified by the firewall, especially if it is a new generation.

We wanted to figure out whether we need to fully deploy EDR-class products on our network, which are a rather expensive pleasure, "Andrei Nuikin explained the results. - WOW effect failed. For most workplaces, a combination of best antivirus protection practices is enough, and only EDR can be installed on critical workplaces. In any case, security must be layered

Artem Natrusov on TAdviser SummIT - about the priorities of digital transformation of Eurasia

Speaking at TAdviser SummIT 2023, Evraz Holding Vice President of Information Technology Artyom Natrusov recalled that Evraz is the world's largest producer of rails, one of the largest producers of vanadium. The company has assets in Russia, Kazakhstan, the USA and Canada, it employs 70 thousand people and an excellent, innovative IT team.

Artyom Natrusov began the report by considering the main global technological trends of 2023: applied observability (Applied Observability), the value of wireless technologies (Wireless-Value Realization), adaptive artificial intelligence (Adaptive AI), return of employees to offices (Back to the Office), joint teams (Fusion Teams), (machine vision Machine Vision).

In Eurasia, follow global technological trends, he noted. In line with the first trend - applied observability - the holding is engaged in predictive equipment diagnostics systems, which brings excellent effects, reduces risks in production. Commenting on the second trend, the speaker stated the need for a reasonable compromise between employers who want employees to return and employees who no longer want to return. As for Evraz, the situation depends on the region. In Moscow, employees after the pandemic cannot return to the office, because there is not enough space for them in the offices - the staff has grown seriously. In many regions around the country, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, there are simply no offices, and employees work well in a cluster format. In general, a hybrid mode of operation has shown its effectiveness, combining a remote format and a periodic visit to the office.

Joint teams of business, production and IT are the principle on which the digital transformation of Evraz is based. Agile practices are also widely used, thanks to which IT teams achieve great results. In the context of adaptive artificial intelligence, Artyom Natrusov drew attention to generative design - a technology when the iterative design process using artificial intelligence is implemented. Unlike the traditional approach, where design begins with a model created by an engineer, generative design starts with given parameters and limitations, and uses artificial intelligence to create a model. According to Artyom Natrusov, the generative design successfully complements the capabilities of BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology in the early stages of design and reduces the overall design time for products, buildings and structures.

They are also engaged in wireless technologies in Eurasia, but not ordinary, but underground - for example, LTE technology has been introduced in ore mines. This makes it possible to monitor mining and transport equipment, which brought the company an economic effect of several million dollars. In the coal direction, the company is developing Wi-Fi of increased power.

In terms of the introduction of machine vision, about 7 thousand video cameras are already operating in Evraz, and many of them are used for industrial automation. For example, the introduction of quality control for cutting ingots made it possible to earn 25 million rubles annually. Another project implemented using machine vision is control of geometric parameters of rolled stock for dynamic control of I-beam rolling in online mode. The direct economic effect of this project is 400 million rubles per year.

Artyom Natrusov also considered possible import substitution tactics, commenting on each of them:

• substitution for Russian products: successful examples - antiviruses, industrial sensors, DBMS, replacement with loss of quality - video conferencing, switches, industrial controllers, problem class of products - Next Generation Firewalls;
• implementation of friendly country systems: possible directions - BI systems, servers, DSS, mobile devices;
• Open Source: Development Stack, Data Lake Stack/DWH
• parallel import: industrial controllers;
• temporary freezing of solutions of Western manufacturers: SAP, specialized software on metallurgical units.

Commenting on the tactics of freezing, the speaker noted that it involves the refusal of updates, the development of the system. For example, SAP can work for another ten years, since it has an perfectly isolated kernel and you don't need to abandon it quickly. The same applies to specialized software on metallurgical units, which contains the know-how of development companies, and it is not possible to replace it quickly. It must be isolated, learned to support and gradually, replaced with parts.

The Evraz production data platform is made mainly on open source products - Greenplum, ClickHouse, Apache Nifi and a number of others, or on products with Russian support. This is a scalable architecture, emphasized Artyom Natrusov. It allows you to receive signals from sensors, aggregate them at a higher level and ultimately get complete transparency of production processes in the company. This platform is also used for clues, digital twins - for everything that has an economic effect.

In terms of the economic effect of digital transformation, Evraz has ambitious plans: this is 150 million dollars direct effect annually. For this, about 150 projects are done per year, and the economic effect, on average, is a million dollars per project.

Artyom Natrusov also outlined the vision of the future of production as it should be: remote control of cranes, video cameras, digital prompts, digital twins, planning and, in general, deserted production. In some areas of production, partly deserted production in test mode can already be implemented, for example, when rolling 100-meter rails.

The speaker stressed that in order to make such interesting projects, people are needed. And in order to attract specialists, interesting events are held, including hackathons.

In Eurasia, we consider the economic effect to be the main criterion for the success of digital transformation, "stated Artyom Natrusov. - And in the world they also think. You should not just make a good program, introduce something useful, but bring a direct economic effect. By direct effect, we mean that we actually got an effect on the cost of production or increase in production. For example, electronic document management, which we implement and which completely replaced paper in the company, is not considered, because it does not bring direct economic effect. Yes - reduced the time, labor costs of a number of employees, but this does not mean that we can reduce them. They will do something different, something more rewarding.

TAdviser SummIT took place on May 30, 2023 in Moscow and gathered more than 1000 participants. Reports were made by Deputy General Director of Russian Railways Yevgeny Charkin, Deputy Head of the Federal Treasury Alexander Albychev, Senior Vice President of VTB Sergey Bezbogov and many others. In a panel interview, Deputy Minister of Digital Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Parshin answered questions from the organizers and guests of the summit.

2022

Filing claims against Dell for 1 billion rubles

At the end of August 2022, it became known about a claim for 15.6 million rubles, which the metallurgical and mining company Evraz filed with its Russian subsidiary Dell. Earlier, similar complaints were sent by Talmer, DCLogic, ITCost and Croc Incorporated, as well as Treolan. The total amount of claims exceeds 1 billion rubles. Read more here.

Digital transformation brought EvrazHolding $150 million

The implementation of 170 digital transformation projects brought EvrazHolding about $150 million in 2021. Artem Natrusov, [2] Vice President for IT at EvrazHolding, spoke about this at TAdviser Summit 2022. According to him, the effect was achieved by reducing the cost of production, optimizing the technological process, applying machine learning and various types of analytics, including using computer vision.

World leaders in our segment are leaders precisely in terms of digitalization. EvrazHolding is a global player with large international business, but even for us $150 million is a very high figure, moreover, not a one-time one, but repeated annually. Despite the events of recent months and a slight reduction in production, in 2022 we are going to repeat the result of 2021, - said Artem Natrusov.

According to him, EvrazHolding launched the digital transformation process in 2018. In the first year, 24 digital projects started. Most of the projects were aimed at reducing the cost of production. According to the vice president for IT, up to 80% of the effect brought by digitalization is achieved by improving production processes. 2021 was the first time that a large-scale effect of digital transformation was obtained.

Artem Natrusov draws attention to the fact that in most companies the use of digital technologies stops at pilots and small projects, getting some kind of limited effect. At the same time, a technological gap is growing between market leaders implementing digital transformation programs and companies that do not or partially do this, which is also manifested in business indicators. For a significant effect, a complete restructuring of the infrastructure is needed: it is impossible to get an effect from the introduction of AI and "clues" if basic automation is at a low level and there are not enough sensors to take indicators from equipment.

According to the vice president for IT, the preparation of EvrazHolding's digital transformation took several years. One of the key tasks was to engage in the management process. This was achieved by making all vice-presidents of the holding the owners of products in at least one agile project. Moreover, digital transformation is underway throughout the holding, including in subsidiaries in Canada and the United States. Russian data science experts are successfully working with colleagues from North America. From the point of view of mathematics, understanding machine learning, optimization methods, the Russian team has a very high level, in some ways even ahead of the world.

As Artem Natrusov notes, not all digital technologies are at the required level of maturity and are able to give an economic effect. The company selects projects and implements only those that improve business performance. In order for the transformation to be systemic, and the flow of ideas for its implementation did not dry up, EvrazHolding developed standards. Each workshop, each production was evaluated according to the level of maturity in order to understand whether all existing technologies that can have an effect have been applied. At each stage of production, the current level of PCS use, infrastructure development, the level of basic automation, saturation with sensors, etc. are analyzed.

To increase the efficiency of transformation, the agile ideology was introduced and a development pipeline was built. Participation in agile projects of representatives production allows IT specialists not to lose focus, creating really necessary solutions for business. Using agile makes it possible to build optimal prioritization and reduce time-to-market (product output time). Without agile, the launch of 170 projects would not have been possible.

Moreover, Microsoft Azur DevOps is used to manage development at EvrazHolding. Despite the departure of Microsoft from the Russian market, its product is still offline.

At the same time, digitalization projects require high competence of employees, all production representatives involved in agile projects receive new competencies. The most capable undergo a training course and become civilian data science specialists. They can independently test hypotheses and make simple projects, this expands the capabilities of teams in general.

Conclusions made at EvrazHolding after obtaining a large-scale effect from digital transformation:

• The effect of digital transformation projects significantly covers costs, which allows you to consider IT as a profit center;
• The digitalization standard allows you to maintain the pace of generation of ideas and promote longer initiatives;
• The tsifrovoy̆ transformation program remains aktualnoy̆ in the face of voznikshey̆ instability in the country.

TAdviser SummIT took place on May 31, 2022 in Moscow. The event was attended by more than 900 delegates, more than 100 reports were made. Among the key speakers are the Minister of Digital Development of the Russian Federation Maksut Shadayev, Deputy General Director of RZDEvgeniy Charkin, Chief information officer of Uralchem Valery Fokin, Vice President for IT at Evrazholding Artem Natrusov, Chief information officer of Lenta Sergei Sergeyev and others.

2021

Agreement with SAP and SibGIA to create SAP Next-Gen Lab

SAP, EVRAZ and Siberian State Industrial University (SibGIU) signed an agreement to create an innovative SAP Next-Gen Lab on the basis of the university. In the laboratory, students and teachers of the university will work on promising digital scenarios for EVRAZ and the mining and metallurgical industry as a whole. This was announced on December 13, 2021 in SAP. Read more here.

Success Factors in Scaling Digital Transformation

Presentation data Natrusov Artem, Vice President for Information Technology, EvrazHolding "Success Factors in Scaling Digital Transformation" and "Scaling Digital Transformation"

2020

Advanced Analytics Project Program

Ryuk attack

On March 6, 2010, it became known that EVRAZ was the victim of a ransomware attack known as Ryuk. Reportedly, the ransomware managed to stop the work of the company's branches in North America.

According to information received from a source in EVRAZ, the cyber attack stopped production at most factories. The company's IT specialists are trying to contain Ryuk and prevent it from spreading over the network. The EVRAZ website states that as of March 2020, the company employs more than 1,400 employees in the United States and about 1,800 in Canada.

The actual owner of the metallurgical company is Roman Abramovich. The company's shares fell 7% at the end of February 2020, after EVRAZ announced a scorching of income from $12.84 billion to $11.91 billion.

As of March 2020, EVRAZ is one of the last major companies attacked by Ryuk operators. Representatives of North American branches have not yet provided any comment on the incident [EVRAZ ^[1]

It is reported that the other day a large international law firm Epiq Global also fell victim to ransomware. Computers at all 80 of the company's headquarters around the world were infected with ransomware^[2].

2019: Evraz CIO Artem Natrusov on TAdviser SummIT - about the most effective methods of digital transformation of a large industrial enterprise

Speaking at the TAdviser SummIT conference on November 27, 2019, Artem Natrusov, Vice President for IT Evraz, shared his ideas about the most effective methods of digital transformation of a large industrial enterprise with a global structure and international business.

Using a well-known classification of companies in relation to innovation, it can be said that there are both conservatives and innovators among industrial enterprises. We consider ourselves active followers, - said Artem Natrusov. This means that we are focusing on projects that, according to our calculations, will have an economic effect.

At the same time, automation of certain functional areas, for example, based on ERP or MES systems, belongs to the previous stage of informatization and now, Artem Natrusov believes, is moving into the category of routine processes. Today, systems that support the transformation of business models are relevant.

In such a situation, digital transformation processes are based on the following basic principles:

• Change management at the organizational level. It implies, in particular, the promotion of "digital culture;
• The choice of "shock" IT capable of providing the greatest effect for business;
• Step-by-step development of IT infrastructure and IT architecture with continuous monitoring of business performance;
• Financial indicator COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) as a criterion for integral assessment of the economic efficiency of informatization.

The COGS parameter is important precisely for industrial enterprises whose activities are associated with significant material resources. It characterizes the amount of funds that were spent on labor, materials and overhead. According to Evraz, due to a competent digital transformation, enterprises from the metallurgical and mining industries can achieve a decrease in COGS.

Those elements of digital transformation that help reduce the cost of production are important for us, - said Artem Natrusov.

The first is the digitalization of production accounting and dispatch functions. The creation of a single digital circuit for maintenance and repair tasks on the basis of a digital dispatch center gives not only a significant economic effect, but also the ability to ensure end-to-end quality management of production processes in all areas, the representative of Evraz noted. For this, the system requires numerous detailed data on the state of machines, mechanisms, objects and production sites in general: from a 3D model of the territory to the performance of a specific mechanism.

An additional increase in efficiency makes it possible to carry out dispatch functions in digital format in real time, - said Artem Natrusov. - Here opens the field for the introduction of machine learning technologies - based on historical data, they help to understand how to act in the current situation.

According to Chief information officer, the company has set the task of covering all critical processes with digital control using dispatch centers in the current digital transformation cycle.

The second element on which Artem Natrusov spoke in detail is advanced analytics. The complex of Advanced Analytics solutions provides data collection and analysis, both on the basis of statistical models, for example, physicochemical and machine learning models, to form recommendations for optimizing the operation of production and technological processes.

According to Natrusov, a good economic effect was shown by the software complex of mathematical modeling of all major redistributions launched at Evraz ZSMK, as well as the expert system of the Evraz ZSMK blast furnace No. 7.

Another element is autonomous technology. This aspect of digitalization belongs to the category of promising.

While the salaries of employees are at the current level, the economic efficiency of deserted smart equipment is not obvious, - commented on the situation Artem Natrusov. "However, we try to keep our finger on the pulse and respond quickly to the opportunities. To this end, we hold regular sessions on the generation of ideas. In particular, the following session was recently held in Nizhny Tagil: the leaders and chief miners of the company's enterprises analyzed new ideas and discussed what would be better for practical use.

The abundance of diverse IT solutions that can improve the efficiency of a company leads to the fact that IT is naturally at the center of a digital industrial company.

In fact, IT has everything you need to move forward with digital transformation processes. From the point of view of the organization, it is necessary that the IT department has all the levels of digitalization, starting from the lowest - APCS, as well as the direction of information security, - Artem Natrusov is sure.

At Evraz, this idea is implemented on the basis of the Big IT concept, within which the IT department acts as a single corporate center for IT expertise. In particular, he explores the experience of the best practices of digital transformation, deals with the implementation of digital culture, is the driving force behind the implementation of IT-Innovations. In addition, the central role allows IT to use the most effective methods of managing project activities in all business areas of the company.

In a number of projects, we use Agile with fast prototyping, - said Artem Natrusov. - But our main approach is hybrid.

The hybrid approach involves the use of the strengths of the traditional waterfall process - those that ensure the successful implementation of basic IT services and solutions with a clearly formalized end result and minimal risks. And flexible IT focused on rapidly changing business requirements is used in projects that require rapid implementation of potentially effective solutions, but with high risks.

Agile is not needed everywhere, but only in cases where there is a lot of uncertainty, - said the Chief information officer of Evraz. - When implementing, say, an ERP system, it will rather be harmful.

О TAdviser SummIT

TAdviser SummIT was held in Moscow on November 27, 2019 and attracted more than 700 participants - heads and experts of IT divisions of the largest companies and government departments of Russia, representatives of IT developers and contractors. During the event, the prospects for digital transformation of business and government agencies, the development of technologies, products and services were discussed. The conference was supported by the Ministry of Digital Development. It was attended by the head of the department Konstantin Noskov, who, during an open discussion, summed up the first results of the Digital Economy national program. In total, about 60 reports were made in the plenary part and five thematic sections. The event was held in 5 halls of Radisson Blu Olympiyskiy.

2018

EVRAZ Digital Transformation Annual Report 2018

• EVRAZ Digital Transformation Priorities
• Expert (cyberphysical) systems aimed at improving the efficiency of the technological process
• Traditional expert systems based on physicochemical process models
• Mathematical models and digital twins based on machine learning and other elements of artificial intelligence
• Predictive maintenance based on predictive status
• Electronic document management using electronic digital signature

Landscape of key information systems - now and development

2017

EVRAZ Digital Transformation Annual Report 2017

Robotization, predictive analysis, mobility. CIO Evraz spoke about the digitalization of metallurgy at TAdviser SummIT 2017

Speaking at the TAdviser SummIT conference on May 2017 31, 2017, Artem Natrusov, Vice President for Information Technology at Evraz, spoke about the digital transformation in metallurgy. Important changes are taking place in the field of expert systems: predictive analysis and operational management are replacing postanalism.

For a long time, methods, Lean Kaizen and Statistical Process Control have been used in production. But the SPC always looks to the past. We analyze the past and try to fix something so that these defects do not arise in the future. Now there are new opportunities, and with the help of predictive analytics, we can proactively organize feedback and intervene in the technological process, adjusting it on the go, preventing defects, - explains Artem Natrusov.

A new type of analytics is in demand in metallurgy in areas such as Predictive maintenance - accident prevention by pre-replacing components close to their failure, Customer related analytics and process control.

Expert systems are an important element of automation in metallurgy. Traditional solutions are based on physicochemical models, they are created for each large unit by specialized firms and cost millions of dollars. Using machine learning, you can create an expert system for specific production needs, taking into account all the features.

An example of such a system is the model of the converter at Evraz NTMK. The mill has a specific step in the extraction of vanadium slag, which cannot be taken into account in the standard solution.

The expert system was made based on the Microsoft Azure Machine learning tool.

Perfect smelts were analyzed, the machine created a model, and this model is used for further predictions. It should advise, for example, the volume of cooler that the operator must put in order to achieve a temperature of 1370 degrees, which ensures that the yield of vanadium slag is maximized. The probability of error decreased from 20% to 6-7%, - said Artem Natrusov.

The creation of a single mathematical model of all stages of production carries great potential for optimizing production. Evraz ZSMKE launched a project to create mathematical models of all major redistributions. If you have models of all redistributions and all matpotok, you can optimize the route as a whole for production, said Artem Natrusov.

According to him, for example, the use of cheaper charge or coal with a higher sulfur content can reduce the cost of production. But at the same time the process becomes less stable, additional desulfurization steps appear. Direct process control and end-to-end costing will help you choose the best option.

Digitalization in metallurgy leads to the need to integrate all levels of automation. This industry already uses a large number of sensors - tens and hundreds of thousands, information from them is already being collected and processed. But there are technical hurdles to transferring data between SCADA, MES and ERP levels.

In order to overcome them, you need to make not only a logical stitching of these levels, but also solve information security issues.

In the past 2 years, in "Evraz" we have made special efforts, made additional PCS level protection, made additional quality checks of this protection, - said Artem Natrusov.

Another promising technology used in Evraz is mobility in production during maintenance and repairs.

Now this is deployed at Evraz NTMK, repair personnel go with mobile devices, every step is noted, an RFID scanner is used. And then all information about defects is automatically collected, the paper is excluded from the process, - said Artem Nartusov.

Among the pilot projects, Artem Natrusov highlighted the study of solutions for Robotic Process Automation. This is a robotic support process for Blue Prism and UI path-based System Service Centers.

In fact, this is a large macro that works on a computer, can access various systems under its records - SAP, 1C, mail, process some messages using certain algorithms. And thus release the operating personnel, - explained Artem Natrusov.

There are many ideas, but only a number of them bring a noticeable economic effect, and the company is focused on introducing what gives effect in tangible time summed up Natrusov.

In total, 400 IT managers of large commercial and government organizations, top managers and experts of IT companies took part in TAdviser SummIT 2017. This year, the conference was held for the first time with the official support of the Ministry of Communications of Russia. The conference featured reports on global technological trends, changed political and economic realities, their impact on the IT industry. IT sessions were also organized in certain industries. In panel discussions, the summit participants exchanged views and forecasts on the prospects for the development of technologies and information systems.

Photo gallery TAdviser SummIT 2017

Шаблон:TAdviser Gallery 2017

2016

Evraz CIO shares secrets of reducing IT costs at TAdviser SummIT

Evraz Vice President of IT Artem Natrusov, speaking at the TAdviser SummIT conference on May 31, 2016, spoke about improving the efficiency of IT at his enterprise. According to Artem Natrusov, in 2016 the company completed a program to increase the internal efficiency of IT, which yielded a 20% reduction in the cost of operating traditional IT in rubles year-on-year without reducing the level of services.

To achieve this result, many activities were developed and implemented. One of the directions was to reduce own costs. The key here has been to reduce staff costs, including external resources in projects and operations. We also managed to reduce the cost of software, hardware and external services.

Evraz Vice President of IT noted that from the point of view of optimizing personnel costs, it is necessary to focus on the indicators of internal and external benchmarking, and from the point of view of levers, you need to analyze everything and look for what can work in each specific situation - outsourcing, centralization, management of the level of compensation, reorganization of internal IT processes, etc.

Based on the experience of his company, Artem Natrusov identified areas that should be paid special attention to when increasing the efficiency of IT. This is, for example, incident and problem management: efforts need to be directed to fixing problems before they lead to consequences that have to be dealt with. The best KPI is the number of closed problems, Natrusov noted.

Another area is Information Systems (IS) Maintenance Management. Here it is necessary to increase the transparency of the execution of applications for system maintenance, to develop a mechanism for planning work on IP maintenance by business priorities and control over the allocation of labor costs for IP maintenance in the context of types of work.

As for reducing software costs, the main optimization of them fell on Microsoft and SAP products . For Microsoft, these are consolidation of DBMS instances , curbing server growth, deep use of software (for example, Power BI, Power Reporting for reporting), and the use of Libre Office for inactive users. For SAP - economical use of licenses, placing part of the functionality in custom development applications, maximum use of the ERP standard and restrained use of "new functionality" licensed separately.

The total costs software also made it possible to reduce the standardization of the landscape of systems and the use of domestic products (,, etc ERP 1C 1C Bitrix ASCON.).

According to Artem Natrusov, in terms of hardware, costs can be reduced by increasing its use time and reducing risks by virtualizing, where possible, high-quality disaster recovery plans and "strict standardization." Other measures - code analysis, DBMS and application settings, archiving instead of hardware modernization, careful analysis of demand, resistance to overestimation of performance/functionality on the part of vendors, etc.

О TAdviser SummIT

TAdviser SummIT, held on May 31, 2016, was visited by more than 240 people - managers and experts of commercial and government organizations. More than 30 reports were submitted within the framework of the event. Among the speakers are representatives of the Ministry of Communications, Sberbank, the Pension Fund, the Federal Treasury, Russian Helicopters, etc. An exhibition of IT companies was held in the foyer of the summit. At the end of the event, a drawing of the Tonino Lamborghini 88 Tauri smartphone worth about 200 thousand rubles took place .

Areas of efficiency improvement

Reduction of own costs (in descending order of importance)

• Personnel, including external resources in projects and operations
• ON
• External services
• Hardware

IT Function - Partner for Business

• Proactive proposal
• Effective projects
• Adequate level of service, including controlled reduction

Reduction of own costs - software

Microsoft:

• Consolidation of DBMS instances
• Curbing server growth,
• Deep use of software (e.g. Power BI, Power Reporting for reporting)
• Libre Office for Inactive Users

SAP:

• Economical use of licenses, placing part of the functionality in custom development applications
• Maximum use of the ERP standard and discreet use of "new functionality" licensed separately
• Standardizing the landscape of systems
• Use of domestic products (1C ERP, 1CBitrix, Ascon, Sphinx for MCDS)

Simplifying the Landscape with HR Systems

Reduce Own Costs - Hardware

• Increase hardware life by reducing

risks at the expense of

• • Virtualization wherever possible
  • Quality Disaster Recovery Plans
  • Strict standardization

• Analyzing code, DBMS and application settings, archiving instead of hardware upgrades
• Careful analysis of demand, resistance to overestimation of performance/functionality on the part of vendors
• Limited use of domestic components (e.g. controllers and sensors)

Efficiency Improvement Methods, Examples

• Reducing the number of minor improvements
• Improvements to eliminate duplication between users and support
• System Consolidation
• E-learning
• User testing
• Additional face-to-face training in groups
• Generalization of operation specialists
• Key Users Institute
• Problem Management

2013: How the Evraz IT service is arranged

All the main IT resources within Russia at Evraz are collected into one organization called Evraz Tekhnika, which is an IT services center. As [3] EVRAZ Vice President for IT Artem Natrusov told TAdviser in December 2013, at the end of the year Evraz Tekhnika employs about 1,500 people, mainly concentrated in Novokuznetsk, Nizhny Tagil and Moscow. At the same time, in 2013, the staff of the organization was reduced by 10%.

The range of tasks of Evraz Tekhnika specialists is quite wide: in addition to traditional IT, they include production communications, and a significant part of the work on the operation of APCS, says Evraz Vice President for IT.

He notes that the IT staff has a fairly high degree of centralization: in recent years, IT personnel who were at Evraz factories and in service companies have gradually been transferred to Evraz Tekhnika, thereby optimizing personnel and increasing efficiency. Only IT services remain at the mills - a few divisions that are engaged in the formation of requirements and control over the quality of service delivery. According to Artem Natrusov, this element is necessary in order to establish the right balance between the requirements of the plant and the quality of the services provided by Evraz Tekhnika.

"Over the past 2.5 years, that I work in the company, Evraz Tekhnika has introduced common KPIs to regulate relations with factories, that is, all employees, all companies work in a single Service Desk system," he says. - This applies to Russia, to Ukraine, to Switzerland. For example, Evraz Tekhnika processes more than 40,000 requests in one month. All their processing is centralized, reports are provided at the level of mills and management companies according to KPI, there is transparency. It's one line of work. "

The second area of ​ ​ work, no less important, according to Artem Natrusov, is the introduction of performance metrics within Evraz Tekhnika. This is a calculation of labor productivity for which a set of certain parameters was selected: for example, the number of PCs per person in the second-level support service, or the number of servers per operating systems administrator, or the number of systems per DBMS administrator, etc., he explains.

"We also have very specialized KPIs, for example, according to APCS, we use a scheme with conditional instrument units, which was originally developed back in Soviet times, but now it has been adapted by us, an internal methodology has been created that allows us to compare the effectiveness of units, even if they support a different set of equipment. That is, it allows you to compare the complexity of one section of the APCS with the complexity of another section, and due to this, see which of the divisions works more efficiently, "says Evraz Vice President for IT.

By introducing these techniques, the company has seen that some divisions are more efficient, others are less efficient, and the imbalance is now being eliminated, he adds.

IT projects

{{# ITProj: EVRAZ Group S.A. (EVRAZ Group)}}

Notes