African steelmaker selects Verano for real-time data

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Verano, a real-time software infrastructure company, announced Nov. 19 that Iscor Ltd., Africa's largest steel producer, is using its Enterprise Link software to access minute-by-minute, real-time manufacturing data, minimize costs, and maximize its production of sinter, a raw material for steel.

By Jim Montague, news editor November 20, 2001

Sunnyvale, Calif. – Verano , a real-time software infrastructure company, announced Nov. 19 that Iscor Ltd., Africa’s largest steel producer, is using its Enterprise Link software to access minute-by-minute, real-time manufacturing data, minimize costs, and maximize its production of sinter, a raw material for steel.

Iscor implemented Verano’s Enterprise Link enterprise messaging and transformation broker software at two flat steel plants at its South Africa-based Vanderbijlpark Works. Enterprise Link integrates plant floor data with Iscor’s enterprise resource system (ERP), so that vital information, such as blast furnace temperatures, pressure, mass of sinter and plant motor status, could be accessed easily across networks. The software’s transformation broker unites production applications with ERP systems, particularly with SAP, creating a loosely coupled architecture that acts like one application.

‘By providing vertical and horizontal integration, Enterprise Link is the ideal two-way communication gateway between our information systems,’ said John Bordalo, Iscor’s process automation systems architect for Flat Steel Products at Vanderbijlpark.

Iscor’s management is able to view crucial information at one-minute intervals, without the missing or slow data transfers that plagued the previous non-Y2K compliant legacy operating system. Verano’s system uses standard templates to transfer data across the enterprise to retrieve data quickly and easily, replacing custom-built applications that produced flat files, which proved to be inaccessible using standard Microsoft tools. As a result, Iscor’s executives can now plan and manage production of sinter more accurately, saving time in production, costs and expenses.