With its sights set on carbon-free production by 2045, the leading mining and minerals group LKAB is thus carrying out one of the largest investments in Swedish industry history, where digitalization and automation are key initiatives to achieve the goals for sustainability and productivity.
Overall, a lot needs to change that requires coherent PLM-based IT support as LKAB transforms its mining operations towards sustainability.
“But the journey of change has begun, we have started with several pilots, and the desire to get more of this is great. The teams have seen and understood what can be achieved, not least from a sustainability perspective,” says LKAB’s transformation leader, Robert Ylitalo, when we meet him at the company’s Stockholm office.
For just over two years, he has been senior strategy, technology and business development leader at LKAB, and no one needs to doubt the importance of environmental factors for his inspired approach to how LKAB must change. And, of course, the enthusiasm about PLM’s role in this:
”The PLM part is paramount in the overall picture and we are now running Teamcenter X for three years which will then land in a decision where we need to evaluate the outcome regarding ’on premise’ versus SaaS and PLM in the cloud before going full scale. But the likely outcome is SaaS,” says Ylitalo.
A World Economic Forum Price Winning Fossil Free Initiative
The signals from car manufacturers like Volvo and Volkswagen that they want green, fossil-free produced steel, which is now starting to make a difference, is one of the interesting backgrounds to LKAB’s green initiatives. HYBRIT (Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology), or MD1 as the project is now called, is about a full-scale demo plant for producing fossil-free sponge iron. An initiative that only a week ago received the World Economic Forum’s ‘Moving Force in Business’ Award in Davos. This GAEA award, one of five, recognizes sustainable business solutions that have the potential to transform whole sectors, industries or markets. HYBRIT was launched in 2016 by LKAB, steel company SSAB, and energy company Vattenfall, who together own the project.
But how does sponge iron production fit in with fossil-free steel? The resulting product of the HYBRIT process is solid iron (sponge iron) which is then melted in an electric arc furnace. Across the entire process, only fossil-free electricity and fuels will be used – resulting in fossil-free steel as the end-product.
In the long term, this technology will create an interesting market drama, says Robert Ylitalo: ”Things like sustainable transport and green steel require, for example, a ’green value chain’ with full traceability.” The PLM initiative is one of the pieces that provides support in this endeavor.
Great Values With New Green Technologies
It is clear that Robert Ylitalo is highly motivated with a strong desire to be one of those who help reduce the mining industry’s fossil CO2 emissions; a trend that has been manifested in recent years in a industrial green boom in the northern parts of Sweden. Not least in the mining and steel industry, where the commitment to sustainability is strong, are at the forefront, with market players like LKAB, SSAB and Vattenfall.
In line with this development, LKAB sees a huge economic potential in the new green technologies with the goal of reducing carbon dioxide and other environmentally hazardous emissions, states LKAB’s transformation leader and points out in this context that the mining and steel sector accounts for around ten percent of CO2 emissions in Sweden.
“Therefore, even small reductions have extremely large effects on the whole, more than in other areas, which means that green transformation in the mining and steel industries is of enormous importance,” says Ylitalo and continues:
“But the will is there, just take the signals from car manufacturers that they want green, fossil-free produced steel. This creates the interesting market drama I discussed above: Things like sustainable transport and green steel require a ‘green value chain’. How do we achieve this? The answer is that nothing is simple and that nothing stops at LKAB. What we do affects the entire value chain. That is why the green tracks we are now developing are so enormously important. But for it to work, smart and well-thought-out problem solutions must be created and optimized; such as production processes that are as fossil-free as possible and traceability that guarantees the origin. Solutions for this can be found, among other things, in the digital tools that PLM frameworks such as Teamcenter X provide. As well as other things that support overview, coordinated actions and effective sustainable processes. Additionally and connected to this sub-PLM tools such as simulation are also becoming extremely important,” says Ylitalo.
Why Did LKAB Choose Teamcenter X?
After a thorough evaluation of the company’s PLM needs, Siemens Digital Industries Software’s cloud- and SaaS-based (Software-as-a-Service) Teamcenter X solution was chosen as the backbone and database platform – what were the important reasons?
“Primarily three,” sums up Robert Ylitalo. “The first is about time-to-market; the system should be implemented in a way that is easy to learn, quick to get started with and contributes to faster process flows. The second important reason in our evaluation concerns flexibility and capacity; this includes things like the scalability perspective. A third was that Siemens had good support for Teamcenter X, not least through its “Customer Success Management” concept.
In a comment around the plant area management, Siemens Digital Industries Software’s Zandra Nilsson, Sales Director for the Nordic region, commented on LKAB’s investment, specifically pointing out the strength of the company’s Teamcenter X and its PLM/cPDm (collaborative Product Definition management) capabilities finely honed performance:
”A SaaS solution of this kind makes it easy and cost-effective to gain control over your products and, in this case, plants, throughout their lifecycle. But the platform is also very sharp when it comes to things like being able to scale up effectively where the customer focuses on the value of PLM and not how it should be operated or optimized in the best way,” she says and claims that this is one of Siemens’ strongest strengths: “We know these things best. Specifically related to the need for lifecycle control in plants and factories, we also see a growing need in all industries to take the next step on the digitalization journey to be able to optimize processes in depth, scale up faster and gain control. With such control over the information, its flows and data quality, companies can also create additional value with the help of AI, industrial metaverse concepts, ‘immersive engineering’ and other future technologies.
3,000 Users Within Reach
In a full implementation, Robert Ylitalo expects around 3,000 internal/external users of Teamcenter X:
”Exactly, we are setting up the process as a two-stage rocket with initially around 100 users for the development of pilots to develop models and solutions for how we will work. In this, we are simply creating the recipe for a broad implementation, including equipment requirements. In the next phase, we will gradually bring in the rest of the workforce and suppliers. Furthermore, we will start by looking at the setup for LKAB’s new facilities and then tackle the management of the older facilities along the way.”
He points out that the diversity of facilities creates heavy complexity:
“As I said, it is not just about one factory, but solutions that affect two ports, 500 kilometers of rail transport with locomotives and wagons that take 46% of Sweden’s total tonnage by rail every day, three mines in Kiruna, Gällivare and Svappavaara with the above-ground processing plants/SAK plants (dressing, concentration and pelletisation). As a curiosity, it can be mentioned that the Kiruna mine alone has 900 kilometers of underground roads, of which about 50 are used and maintained.
It is not difficult to realize the complexity of this diversified landscape.
“No, that is the case,” says Ylitalo. “The performance targets will also be many, but a basic point is that you save time finding information about, for example, operational disruptions. This in turn can also be linked to the value of how to work effectively with pieces such as maintenance, safety, training or the use of digital twins in 3D to eventually simulate and analyze production to optimize flows via 3D models.”
Flow Optimization and “Closed-Loop Manufacturing Solutions”
Operational disruptions, linked to maintenance, are relevsant examples of efficiency problems in diversified mining complexes. How then?
To cope with global competition, advanced and flow-optimized facilities are required today, which produce as much as possible with as few stops as possible. In a perfect world, this works flawlessly, but reality is rarely perfect. Even small operational disruptions can have major consequences, as investigated in an academic thesis at Luleå University of Technology, by Nils-Petter Vonni. This paper states, among other things, that the major costs of operational disruptions are often related to “reduced production volume rather than the cost of fixing the problems.” But by working with preventive, predictive maintenance, measures can be taken during planned stops, which can improve operational reliability and in turn reduce the risk of interruptions.
In this, a problem can be what Robert Ylitalo also notes related to the performance of maintenance, that the operations in certain areas lack relevant current data to make decisions based on. In this, data collection, analyses, models for predictive maintenance and standardized action programs are of great importance in providing increased control over data collection and action programs.
This is precisely the type of Siemens solution that has been launched in the company’s Closed-Loop Manufacturing concept” (CLM). This, i.e. “a closed loop”, can mean working with a PLM-related automatic control system in which the operational control, process or mechanism is regulated by fed-back operating data. Limited to the operation of a mining/ore production line, one can, for example, imagine an IIoT-connected (Industrial IoT) platform that captures all operating data from the belt and continuously checks this against predetermined templates of what the production output should look like. Potentially, such a system can be built so that it tells where, when and how a preventive maintenance measure should be carried out. But as it develops in the long run it can also raise alarms in the event of deviations, “tell” where the problem lies and, in the best case, suggest and even perform measures.
Simulation Will Gain Increasing Importance in Streamlining Operations
“This is of course an interesting model and something where I believe AI will mean a lot. We’re keeping an eye on this, and the pieces we add will be guided by very careful process designs, where AI will play an important role as the solutions mature. But I also want to point out the role of the simulation area in this context, among other things when it comes to optimizing operations,” comments Ylitalo explaining that: “Simulation will become an extremely important part of operations, which can provide answers to questions that are also of crucial importance for operational efficiency. How does a planned mine work from an ore mining or logistics perspective? Or what about the roller circuits that shape the pellet balls? What is the ideal ball size? Or what is required in terms of the length of cabling connected to the electric vehicles? There are lots of good examples that make the benefits of simulation clear.”
The Change Journey Itself is the Big Challenge
The prospects for LKAB’s PLM initiative are undeniably very interesting. But initially, Robert Ylitalo and the development team’s focus is on defining what needs to be included in the system.
“Yes, we are working on this: what works and what doesn’t? When that’s done, we will see when we are ready to take the next step. But the plant side is a priority and a starting point. It is then first about fixed facilities and not machines, but ventilation, water, gas, electricity and other things that make up the fixed elements of the facilities. We currently have design data identified for four existing facilities in the system and are looking at what needs we can find. Then we have two digital twin plants in the ongoing work with REEmap in Luleå and MD1/Hybrit.”
“Not least in light of this, it is crystal clear that we need a cohesive PLM platform, such as Teamcenter X. State-of-the-art mining and steel operations, like so many other industrial processes, are, in short, on their way to becoming even more information-driven operations,” he adds.
LKAB’s PLM project looks like a wise move to meet a number of future requirements, but it has its challenges:
“Absolutely,” says Robert Ylitalo. “It is primarily the change journey itself, with different organizations within the group working in different ways. We will overcome that with information that creates understanding of the values that can be achieved with our investment. LKAB has been on the path for a long time, we would not have done that without a built-in “pioneer” culture characterized by the desire to break new ground”
Rikard Skogh – Enterprise Sales Executive at Siemens and responsible for green industry initiatives – agrees; LKAB is the driving force behind a global shift towards a more sustainable mining and steel industry, he says:
“We also look forward to being part of the solution for this massive green transition. By leveraging our extensive digitalization portfolio, LKAB can seamlessly integrate physical and digital resources, optimizing its facilities for greater efficiency and reduced environmental impact. Digitalization and sustainability go hand in hand and with Teamcenter X as the backbone, LKAB gets the right facility information in the right context to the right person.”
Doubtlessly more “PLM bang for the buck,” as Robert Ylitalo puts it.
