United States Steel Corp.'s just announced partnership with Google Cloud on generative AI is just the first of many projects the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker is planning to do around its operations to take hold of the future.
U.S. Steel (NYSE: X) and Google have been working at the company's Minnesota iron ore mines to optimize the use of its truck fleet in an application U.S. Steel is calling MineMind.
Jim Bruno, who is SVP of European Solutions at U.S. Steel but who also is responsible for the companywide IT, said the company had been looking for first-use cases for the Google AI and the staff at the Minnesota division volunteered.
MineMind is an app that will help the company save time and money on maintenance of the trucks at the mine, allowing U.S. Steel to have every bit of data in easily accessible, helping to better predict and carry out maintenance, and help with the whole maintenance and repair process. U.S. Steel says it believes it could save about 20% of time over the current system.
"It fits into a broader picture of what we are trying to there with maintenance as a whole," Bruno told the Business Times from the company's offices in Slovakia.
U.S. Steel had worked with Google in the past and was able to move quickly from concept to a trial product, about two and a half weeks. Bruno said the system will go into full operation in September, only about eight weeks from end to end.
Bruno said that a 20% savings is substantial, given how much the company spends on maintenance in Minnesota and elsewhere.
"That's pretty big, that's just beginning, as we get into it," Bruno said.
It's all part of the plan by David Burritt, president and CEO, to take advantage of what he recently called favorable external trends in the marketplace: decarbonization, deglobalization and digitization. U.S. Steel is building up its sustainable and green steel capabilities, and it's making the most of its leading iron-ore mines and domestic supply chains.
But what hasn't gotten a ton of outside attention until recently has been U.S. Steel's moves in digitization, which Burritt discussed in the second-quarter earnings call July 29.
"We may be a 122-year-old company, but we are intensely future-focused, and we have a bias for speed," Burritt said at the time.
And it's gotten a fast start: U.S. Steel said its recent AI-related projects have saved the company upward of $15 million a year with the potential for more down the line. That includes employing a cost-optimization algorithm at U.S. Steel Europe to save likely $5 million a year, another $4 million savings for AI to maximize boiler efficiency at U.S. Steel Gary Works.
U.S. Steel has also begun working with Carnegie Robotics on initiatives that will help the company in the future.
Bruno said the company has further plans with generative AI putting time and effort into operations at Gary Works, the Mon Valley and elsewhere. Bruno said the company is both training employees from across the company on AI and then asking their thoughts about how it could best best be used.
"We've laid out plans that will take us the next two or three years," Bruno said. "It's going to drive some pretty substantial improvements."
And it's only the start. Bruno said that it's important for U.S. Steel to work fast and smart on AI.
"I have a strong personal belief that if you are not on the front end of this you're going to find yourself way behind three years from now," Bruno said.
