Improvement of In-Line Process Control in High Frequency Welded Steel Pipe Mill Using Advance Tube Tracking System

This study is based on practical experience of improving in-line process control in High Frequency Induction Welded steel pipe mill through the use of a unique advance tube tracking system. The system was designed and implemented in Saudi Steel Pipe Co in early 2009. The new tracking system goes beyond identifying the tube, coil, and heat number. It has the advantage of allowing the quality control inspectors to enter the hold tubes numbers in the system and restrict those hold tubes from processing in the next stages. This has led to significant improvement in segregation process and eliminating the hold pipes from reaching the final stage or the customer site. The tracking system is also linked to the Continues Electronic Process Control (CEPC) where all the welding and annealing parameters such as welding power, line speed, and annealing temperature are recorded and automatically linked to each produced coil. Furthermore, all in-process inspection reports are entered directly on the system which has resulted in reduction of manual work and availability of huge database for analysis. Engineers, managers, and even third party inspectors have the chance of viewing all inspection reports through the system. They can even check the history of each pipe, when and how many times it was tested and/or held at each station. The full history of each pipe can be obtained using only the find option in the tracking system. A significant improvement was also noticed in reducing manual work in preparation of release documents since all information is available in the system and can be checked and reviewed in a real time basis.