Shandong Iron and Steel Group wanted to optimize their blast furnace kinetic energy conversion system, aligned with the state’s commitment to improve efficiencies of traditional energies. The project required building two new 3,800-cubic-meter blast furnaces in Jinan to reduce iron smelting energy consumption. Shandong Province Metallurgical Engineering won the bid but faced several challenges when designing the plant’s 27 subsystems. They previously used third-party plant design software but encountered modeling inadequacies that made them realize they needed a more robust, collaborative modeling solution.

Shandong Province Metallurgical Engineering selected MicroStation, OpenBuildings, and OpenPlant for structural, architectural, and pipeline design, and ProjectWise to coordinate modeling among the 14 disciplines. By performing collision detection, they identified and resolved over 60 equipment errors to save more than CNY 3 million. They used the applications to improve digital management of more than 3,000 equipment models and enabled delivery of the first blast furnace 20 days ahead of schedule, saving over
CNY 1.2 million.