November – ICSOBA 2020 (virtual)

Bertrand Allano presented an update on Rio Tinto Smelter 4.0, from Vision to Delivery and the significant progress that has been made since Rio Tinto presented its Smelter 4.0 vision in 2017.  In the field of automation, the first autonomous anode transport vehicle is currently being tested in the ALVANCE Aluminium Dunkerque smelter.  Regarding remote activities, the Aluminium Operation Centre is delivering support to all Rio Tinto Atlantic Operation smelters, adding significantly to their value creation.  The Technical Assistance 4.0 team does the same for AP Technology™ licensees.  Virtual reality is now embedded into training modules.  Mobile applications like Mobile KPI, SmartPot and APM4 micro cell are used to support operation and process.  Closer to the cell, new sensors deliver information unavailable hitherto, which is stored in data lakes and new algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence are used to drive the cell to its optimal performance.  Some of these concrete achievements for the smart cell, focusing on operator training, sensors, algorithms and cell performance were explained.