To date, the company has developed more than 40 projects with different institutions.
In 2017 the Nuevo Leon 4.0 initiative was launched to promote the digitalization and automation of industrial processes in companies located in this northern state of Mexico.
Since then, companies, universities, and business organizations got together for this initiative to bring Nuevo Leon to the state-of-the-art Industry 4.0 in Mexico and Latin America. Ternium was no exception.
To date, the company has developed more than 40 projects with entities such as the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores Monterrey (ITESM), the Escuela de Graduados en Administración y Dirección de Empresas (EGADE Business School) and the Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM)
One of the most recent ones is the analysis of paint loosening in the production area of painted rolls.
In this initiative, we worked together with the ITESM and laid out the possibility of finding a tool that shows which are the most representative variables for the occurrence of paint loosening; we got a list of meaningful variables of the flaw.
Thanks to this collaborative work, we created a logistic regression model to identify the more meaningful variables statistically in the occurrence of these types of defects. From a total of 149 process variables, we identified 13 as the most relevant ones.
“These projects allow us to work with people who are specialized in these technologies and to apply them to specific problems in our processes. The interaction with universities is fundamental so that we can keep up to date with related subjects,” told Fernando Monti, Manager of New Technologies and Automation.
Also, on process is the initiative of identification and classification of types of scrap metal through the use of deep learning algorithms with artificial intelligence. This project was done together with the Design and Technology Innovation Center (CIDYT, by its initials in Spanish) and the ITESM.
The company also participated in the MIND 4.0 project as part of the Nuevo Leon 4.0 project. This program aims to build bridges between big companies and entrepreneurs to ease the creation and implementation of innovative ideas and solutions for the industry.
“Universities find in Ternium a model company regarding innovation and promotion of new technologies, always focusing on achieving solutions that contribute added value to the business,” said Jorge Rada, Manager of Industrial Systems of Quality and Tenigal.