According to Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), the industry-led nonprofit that is administering the funding, the Canadian steelmaker will equip its secondary metallurgy area with digital tools to minimize manual intervention, reduce process variation and improve final metal properties.

“The project will transform a heavy industrial asset with the best in advanced sensor development, video machine learning, and cognitive and cloud computing,” NGen said in a statement. 

ArcelorMittal Dofasco has several partners on the project, including Tenova Goodfellow Inc., IBM Canada and i-5O, a North American specialist in AI vision systems. 

Tenova Goodfellow said the sensor network that is to be installed will be based on an array of proprietary Tenova technologies, including two that are being applied to ladle furnace operations for the first time, along with a third optical technology that’s never been applied to vacuum degassing. 

“In addition, Tenova will develop a technologically advanced sensing network capable of providing critical real-time process measurements that are currently not available,” it said.