Big River Steel CEO attends White House summit on artificial intelligence

Osceola, Ark.-based Big River Steel’s CEO Dave Stickler recently attended the “Artificial Intelligence for American Industry” summit hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Stickler was in attendance as part of the discussions on how industries are adopting AI technologies to benefit their customers, workers, and shareholders.

A common theme throughout the summit was how AI and related technologies are creating new types of jobs and demand for new technical skills across industries, a point that particularly resonated with Stickler as he reflected on the team at Big River.

"Steel production used to be 80 percent brawn and 20 percent brains. At Big River, steel production is 90 percent brains and 10 percent brawn," said Stickler. "Our Flex Mill™ learns from every ton of steel we produce via the data that is collected throughout the production process. Our team has developed the skills needed to work alongside that technology.”

Big River has partnered with Noodle.ai and EFT Analytics to introduce machine learning throughout its steel mill in Osceola. Big River's steelmaking technology was primarily supplied by SMS group and was designed to produce niche steels, including AHSS for the automotive and transportation industries, as well as electrical steels. Predicting energy consumption and optimizing scheduling are two areas in which machine learning models are positively impacting the steelmaker.