Vale: Control Loop Optimization—Vitória Pelletizing Plants I-IV

It is also the world’s largest producer of iron ore and pellets and one of the largest producers of nickel. It produces copper, manganese, ferroalloys, bauxite, alumina, aluminum, coal, cobalt and platinum group metals (PGMs).

Accenture collaborated closely with Vale to install and configure the PlantTriage® software in Vale’s pelletizing plants I-IV in Vitória/ES for performance assessment, diagnoses and tuning of a total of 200 control loops.

Vale searches, continuously, for cutting-edge solutions to improve its operations. The Control Loop Management projects were motivated from the need for process optimization, cost reduction and higher operations efficiency. It was possible through the deployment of tools, methods and people to manage control loops that are, in great part, responsible for the behavior of the ore treatment process variables.

Accenture installed and configured the PlantTriage® software in Vale’s pelletizing plants I-IV in Vitória/ES for performance assessment, diagnoses and tuning of a total of 200 control loops. Optimization services for those control loops were executed, as well as periodic consulting and training for Vale’s personnel.

The main areas of the plant executed in the project were:

• Furnace
• Coal addition
• Thickening

Some of the most relevant activities included process analysis using PlantTriage® and trend graphs, PID controllers tuning and action plan generation for instrumentation maintenance.

The main benefits with this project were:

• 5.5 percent fuel (natural gas and coal) consumption reduction in Plant I and 1 percent in Plant III

• 20 percent variability reduction in dried ore mass of thickening underflow in Plants I and II, generating a more precise coal dosage

• Temperature variability reduction in the chamber for hardening pellets of Plants I, II and III

• Identification of gas valves problems in Plant IV, which presented significant losses

• Payback of five months considering only the benefits of Plants I and III