Paper Title
Online Coil Information System for Inventory Management at CRM 1 & 2 Complex at Bokaro Steel Plant, Bokaro

Abstract
This paper presents a recently developed coil information system in Cold Rolling Mills (CRM) 1&2 of Bokaro Steel Plant (BSL), Bokaro. In Cold Rolling Mills (CRM) 1&2 at BSL, hot rolled coils are processed in the different processing units starting from pickling lines till these are dispatched in the form of rolled coils / sheets / plates etc. At all the units, the coil processing information is manually maintained in the log books. Due to the manual system, it becomes difficult to find out the status and location of a coil that has entered the complex. As the information is not available readily, the shop faces problems like identity loss at successive units and unplanned processing of coils. To address these problems, Research & Development Centre for Iron & Steel (RDCIS), in association with BSL, Bokaro has developed an online coil information system for CRM 1&2 complex along with various MIS. The objective of this online coil processing information system is to ensure on-line availability of stock position and easy tracking of coils at each and every processing unit in order to achieve reduction in identity loss of coils, reduction in downgrading of coils etc. The existing BSL network was extended with new network devices and Fibre Optic Cable (FOC) to cover all data entry points. The software modules developed have in-built checks and validations which ensures in significant reduction in the entry of wrong coil data which was earlier impossible. The application software developed on SAP/ERP platform covers entry of coil related data at different processing units starting from Pickling Line Entry to Galvanizing Line. Access to the software is based on the authentication as well as privilege provided to the respective shift in-charges / line in-charges / operators of respective processing units. Keywords - Cold Rolling Mill, Online Coil Information System, ERP.