Mar 21 2017
Two newly formed companies taking disruptive aim at established industries, Arkansas's Big River Steel and Noodle.ai, a San Francisco-based Enterprise Artificial Intelligence company, announced a contract to implement Enterprise AI to optimize operations at Big River Steel’s recently completed $1.3 billion scrap metal recycling and steel production facility in Osceola, Arkansas.
Big River Steel is the world’s first smart steel production facility. The facility is designed to be both environmentally resourceful and technologically advanced. “We are a technology company that just happens to make steel,” says Dave Stickler, CEO of Big River Steel. Big River Steel is on a mission to meet the rising demand for high-quality steel while growing a more robust American steel manufacturing industry through technological innovation.
Noodle.ai’s predictive AI engines, configured on its industrial operations platform, The BEAST, will help optimize a vast array of functions throughout the mill. “This mill possesses a rich trove of sensor data for our platform to leverage, allowing us to help unlock breakthrough improvements in areas such as maintenance planning, production line scheduling, logistics operations, and environmental protection,” says Stephen Pratt, CEO of Noodle.ai.
Mr. Stickler added, “Our mill is analogous to a driverless car, the first day, the car doesn't know how to drive itself but the more it drives the more it learns,” he said. “The AI algorithms will allow the mill to react to production challenges automatically.” In January of this year, the mill’s first full month of production, Big River Steel established a record-setting month with over 63,000 tons of hot rolled steel produced during the month.
Source: https://bigriversteel.com/