Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) continues to implement its “Industry 4.0” strategic initiative. A key element of MMK Group's development strategy up to 2025 is digitalisation, which covers an increasing number of MMK's business processes, and increases productivity and product quality. Digitalisation also ensures employee safety and increases their efficiency, eliminates routine tasks, and helps to meet customer expectations and keep up with the demands of the modern world.

In the era of rapid development of digital technologies, the competitiveness of any business is determined by its ability to use modern IT systems to improve functional and operational efficiency. The Company's digitalisation strategy is based on more than a hundred digital transformation projects that have benefited almost two dozen of the Company's main functions. Priority areas include maintaining an integrated corporate information system, providing mobile access to key business applications, using artificial intelligence for modelling and forecasting both technological and business processes, end-to-end production planning and operational management of order fulfilment, as well as protecting the health and safety of employees in the performance of their duties.

By 2025, the implementation of "Industry 4.0" projects is expected to save MMK up to USD 160 mln.

Today, digital transformation affects MMK production at all levels. This ranges fr om sinter production, where mathematical models help to analyse the quality of purchased coal and optimise the process of iron smelting, to the Company’s customer communications, wh ere the specially-designed web application MMK Customer allows clients to track the progress of their order online.

MMK’s successful implementation of IT projects is made possible by the digital maturity of the Company, which has long been distinguished by its high level of industrial automation and extensive use of digital systems.

"Using digital technologies in all fields of work will be the main driving force for the development of MMK in the immediate future. People are the key factor of implementing any strategy. Our specialists have transferred all of their profound practical experience into the digital dimension, which, along with the ability to use digital technologies during everyday production activities, allows us to improve rationality and quality in decision-making at all management levels, as well as to improve the efficiency of all business processes. Thanks to digitalisation, we will be able to hand over a significant part of the more monotonous, non-creative activities to robots, leaving employees with more time to work on more complex and interesting tasks and to learn about new technologies and develop their professional skills," said Pavel Shilyaev, CEO of MMK.

You can find out more about the digitalisation projects currently being implemented at MMK in our video clip: MMK. The digital evolution.