In early March, when the weather is just turning warm, the heat‑treatment area at Baowu Group Ma'anshan Iron & Steel Rail Transit Materials Technology Co., Ltd. (hereafter "Magang Rail Materials") hums with intense production. At 7:30 on the morning of March 6, just before dawn, assistant plant manager Tao Li was already in his work gear, moving through the roaring production lines as usual.

"In our line of work, the shop floor is a battlefield," Tao said firmly. Pointing to a nearby robotic arm at work, he reflected, "Look — this line has become very 'smart' now. But before, even small deviations in wheel pickup during charging gave us endless headaches."

The "smart" production line Tao mentioned stems from the newly launched "Smart Eye" system. Previously, the furnace‑loading robots used fixed pickup coordinates; any slight positional deviation from earlier processes could cause unstable grabs or even wheel overturns. Workers had to endure high heat to constantly adjust parameters manually — a physically demanding task that constrained productivity.

Change began with technological empowerment. At the end of 2025, AI‑based visual recognition was introduced to the heat‑treatment area, equipping the production line with a keen "Smart Eye."

Now, when a trolley brings a glowing wheel to Furnace No.4, the visual system springs into action, capturing millimeter‑level offsets in the wheel stack and instantly sending correction data to the robot. The robot automatically adjusts its posture and reliably places the wheel into the furnace. At the laser‑marking station for Furnace No.5, a separate vision system identifies wheel position in real time, guiding the robot to dynamically adjust marking paths at high speed and efficiently produce clear, standardized labels.

"Before, people read the data and diagnosed issues; now the system detects problems first and intervenes automatically." The system not only eliminates human visual error and frees workers from hot, repetitive labor, but also enables real‑time process monitoring and risk warning. If the AI algorithms detect anomalies from the data, the system immediately triggers alerts, and can even halt production — preventing quality risks at the source and providing a double guarantee for stable production and product quality.

From data visualization to algorithmic judgment, and on to automated alerts and precise interventions, the introduction of the "Smart Eye" exemplifies Magang Rail Materials' localized development of new quality productive forces and the use of digital‑intelligent technologies to upgrade traditional industry. It has greatly improved production efficiency and intrinsic safety, and injected strong momentum into the company's effort to meet higher standards for core products.

As an important participant in the localization of high‑speed rail wheels, Magang Rail Materials began mass mounting of its wheels in 2024, and mounting volumes will further increase this year. High‑speed rail wheels are critical components for train safety and allow no margin for error. Tao and his colleagues are well aware of their responsibility; they plan ongoing quality and efficiency upgrades to the heat‑treatment line, introducing more high‑temperature vision systems and algorithmic models to move toward greater production stability and controllable quality.

Source: anhuinews.com