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ABSTRACT
In this modern world of Industrialization and automation, energy plays a major role in the growth of any organization. The utilization of energy plays an impacting and direct role in the growth of organizations like Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.
The Telecommunication department plays a vital role in providing & maintaining different electronic communication systems in various departments to achieve the assigned targets and accomplishing the desired performance in VSP.
In Vizag Steel Plant, The supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) is implemented to monitoring the energy network.The objective of this SCADA system is to monitor the energy usage and demands of various consumers of the plant and exercise effective control over their energy consumption and optimum utilization of in-house energy resources.
INTRODUCTION
Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, an integrated steel plant under the corporate entity of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), is the first shore based integrated Steel Plant in the country, constructed with the then latest state of the art technology. The Plant with a rated capacity of 3.0 Mt is a producer of steel products in the longs category like wire rods, re-bars, angles, channels, blooms and billets.
2. EVOLUTION
Visakhapatnam Steel Plant was conceived in the year 1970 as a unit of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) to augment its long products capacity and to service the southern markets. Announcement for Visakhapatnam Steel Plant was made in the Parliament in the year 1970 and the foundation stone was laid in 1971 by the late Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi. The feasibility report of the plant was made in 1973 and the Indo-Soviet Agreement was signed in 1979. The comprehensive detailed project report was made in 1980 and the project was sanctioned by Government of India in 1982. In the same year, a separate company called Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited was formed.
The plant was to be commissioned by 1986 as per original schedule. However, because of severe cash crunch, in the year 1986, a rationalized concept was adopted to lower the capital costs. Some of the envisaged facilities were dropped and the nameplate capacities of steel making and rolling mills were increased for making revenue generation more attractive.
Finally, the plant was fully commissioned in the year 1992. Due to the long gestation period of 22 years from concept to commissioning stage, the capital cost of the project went up from original estimate of Rs.2256 crs in 1979 to Rs.8594 crs in 1992. As a result of high capital cost and large borrowings the company had to bear high interest and depreciation burden resulting in continuous losses. This has resulted in huge cost over runs and high capital related charges and Visakhapatnam Steel Plant at the time of commissioning itself had a net loss of over Rs.2000 crs.
While the plant was picking up production, the South East Asian financial crisis severely affected the steel market which led to continuous drop in steel prices both in domestic and international markets. Also from 1998, the steel industry, worldwide, was affected by recession. Steel demand declined, forcing the steel producers to throttle production levels. Many unviable production units in the world had to close down. India’s exports were hit adversely and domestic consumption remained almost stagnant. Sales realizations plummeted and profitability of the Indian steel producers was adversely affected. All these conditions brought a tremendous pressure on the financials of the company.
3. THE TURN-AROUND
Despite these adverse conditions, the Vizag Steel collective rose to the occasion and over the last few years Vizag Steel’s performance has improved on all fronts including production, techno-economics, marketing and financials. The emphasis initially had been towards total employee involvement, then to technology up gradation and process management and then to managing external environment.
At this juncture, the leadership played a crucial role in providing direction focusing on critical issues and empowering employees. A number of sustenance and performance improvement programmes were initiated to put the company on the growth trajectory. The emphasis was on attaining rated capacity at the earliest, improving techno-economic performance, improving health of equipment, cost reduction and process innovations. Systematic and standard operation practices and structured systems were developed and Vizag Steel was the first integrated steel plant in the country to be accredited with all the three International Standards for Quality (ISO 9001), for Environment Management (ISO 14001) and for Occupational Health and Safety (OHSAS-18001).
All these initiatives gave positive results and the company started its journey to excellence by crossing its rated capacity levels in the year 2001-02. Since then the company has been operating consistently beyond the rated capacities. Currently, the plant is operating at 120% of its rated capacity.
The Plant turned around in the year 2002-03 by achieving for the first time a net profit of Rs.521 crs. The improved performance saw Vizag Steel become a Zero debt company and is a net positive company today having wiped off all its accumulated losses.