MTS will implement digital technologies at the plant of UralChem

2020: Plans of implementation of digital technologies

On July 8, 2020 PJSC MTS, the Russian company on providing digital, media and telecommunication services, and JSC UCC UralChem — one of producers in the market of mineral fertilizers in the Russian Federation and the CIS, signed the agreement of intent providing cooperation in the field of production digitalization. The companies consider the possibility of implementation of artificial intelligence technologies, digital modeling and Internet of Things on production capacities of JSC UCC URALCHEM.

The center of industrial automation of MTS is going to book complex audit of one of workshops of the company and to offer the plan of increase in efficiency of production processes, to create the end-to-end "lake of data" between different workshops, to develop a quality control system of a pulp and to optimize operation of the boiler equipment.

the International experience shows that use of technologies of Internet of Things and artificial intelligence on production allows to increase development of products by 4-6% and to lower costs thanks to decrease in a consumption of energy resources by 4-5%, economy on repairs and equipment downtime, – the vice president of MTS for cloud and digital solutions Dmitry Halin noted. – Emergence in MTS of the center of industrial automation allowed to expand a range of services for industrial enterprises. Now we propose not only solutions on digitalization of separate processes, but also complex audit of workshops, creation of end-to-end data exchange systems and solutions on the basis of artificial intelligence.

We already worked with representatives of the Center of industrial automation of MTS: in 2018-2019 at the plant the first project stage on stabilization of development of fertilizers was implemented by the drum granulator dryer. It allowed to reach effect on performance improvement of 2% on different products, – Daniil Naumov, the head of digital laboratory of URALCHEM noted. – Deep data analysis reveals sometimes unevident patterns therefore we expect high efficiency of cooperation. We hope not only to optimize a number of production processes, but also to jointly develop a comprehensive plan of further digitalization in the selected directions.

Quality control of a pulp. A pulp – the main material of which fertilizers are made. In the course of its production there is a need to timely fix a structure deviation from regulation. MTS is going to create predictive model which in the absence of sensors in tanks will be able to define structure of a product and to issue recommendations to technologists on the basis of data analysis from the equipment and their comparison with results of laboratory analyses. Optimization of chemical composition of a pulp improves quality of fertilizers and reduces defects.

Optimization of operation of the boiler equipment. MTS will work a possibility of implementation of the virtual assistant who will select in real time an optimal operation mode of boilers thanks to accounting of different operation parameters of the equipment and external conditions. Methods of machine learning allow to find implicit dependences, to consider specific properties of specific installation. The predictive model can recommend to employees the optimal operation modes of the equipment increasing the efficiency of units.

The project is going to be implemented in partnership with developer company of solutions on data analysis of Astaire.