RHI Magnesita wins Microsoft Intelligent Manufacturing Award in the category ‘Add Value’

2021-03-11

Mar. 11, 2021 - RHI Magnesita, the world market and technology leader for refractories products, systems and solutions, is one of the winners of the Microsoft Intelligent Manufacturing Award. With this award, Microsoft and Roland Berger honor leading industrial pioneers who drive the change towards Industry 4.0 with innovative ideas and creative approaches. Last fall, 60 industrial companies applied for the award.

RHI Magnesita impressed the jury with Automated Process Optimization (APO) and won the category “Add Value!”. APO is a revolutionary digital solution that uses artificial intelligence to predict the service life of refractory products. This increases safety significantly and optimizes production processes, resulting in fewer production downtimes. In its statement of reasons, the jury points out the enormous savings potential and the substantial increase in efficiency in what has been proven to be a complicated production environment.

Stefan Borgas, CEO RHI Magnesita, explains: “As world market leader in refractories, we are responsible for the heat management of our customers. With APO we have created an innovative solution for an old problem. Implementing digitalization in such an extremely hot and dirty environment is a huge challenge. We therefore use artificial intelligence and a large amount of data to predict the life cycle of the protective refractory products. Our customers benefit from reduced maintenance times and increased safety.” Borgas extends his appreciation to the team that developed APO: “Congratulations to the creative minds that brought this idea to life. Also many thanks to Microsoft for being such a great digitalization partner on our side.”