British Steel is exploring the use of artificial intelligence to enhance quality control in its rail operations. Currently, the company captures around 4,000 photographs of each rail during the rolling process at temperatures of 950 Celsius, generating more than 100,000 inspection images every hour.
Working with the University of Leicester’s School of Engineering under the SUSTAIN and IGNITE projects, the company aims to speed up the detection of imperfections, which currently requires manual review and can lead to production pauses.
British Steel’s Technical Director, Dr Andy Trowsdale, said AI could help identify flaws more quickly and reliably, improving manufacturing performance, product quality, and service delivery while reducing rejection costs.
