Ladle Monitoring AI
Track every ladle by number through the melt shop, watch shell temperature for refractory hot spots, see slag and skull build-up, and monitor pouring.
Ladle Monitoring AI for the Toughest Melt Shops, Casters, and Foundries
Deploy Anywhere, Run Everywhere
Run ladle monitoring on thermal and visual cameras at ladle stations, crane runways, and pour points on the edge, on-prem, in your VPC, or via API, with heat-shielded housings.
One Platform, Full Adoption
Tools every melt shop team can adopt, from steelmaking and refractory engineers to crane operators, no separate ML team required.
Secure, Compliant, and Audit-Ready
Data stays safe with SOC 2 Type II compliance, encrypted data, HIPAA compliance, and an uptime SLA.
- Ladle Number Reads & Location Tracking
- Refractory Hot Spots on the Ladle Shell
- Slag Line & Skull Build-Up
- Pour Stream & Tapping Monitoring
- Ladle Cycle Time & Preheat Status
- People Near Molten Metal Zones
“Roboflow has been instrumental in accelerating our deployment of innovative AI solutions.”
Travis Turnbull
Vice President & CIO, Pella Corporation
Talk to a Vision AI engineer who's shipped in steel and metals.
Bring us your toughest ladle monitoring problem and we'll map a working solution.
Ask us about:
- Solution architecture that fits ISO 45001, ISO 9001, ISO 50001, and your ladle management and crane systems
- A live demo on your own melt shop thermal and visual footage
- Deployment options: edge, on-prem, air-gapped, VPC, or on heat-shielded thermal and visual cameras around the melt shop
- ROI modeling against breakouts, refractory costs, ladle turnaround time, and energy used for preheat
Over 16,000 organizations build with Roboflow.
- Rivian
- Pella
- Chobani
- USG Corporation
- BNSF Railway
- American Woodmark
Vision AI is transforming businesses
Customers across the board are solving complex challenges and driving meaningful impact.
- Automotive customer
$10 million
Saved by automatically detecting defects on the production line
- Logistics & freight company
90%
Less time spent manually tracking shipping inventory
- Building materials supplier
60%
Lower customer return rate with improved product quality
Track and Protect Every Ladle, from Tapping to the Caster and Back to Preheat
Bring real-time intelligence to every ladle in the melt shop with Roboflow Vision AI for ladle monitoring. Built for steel mills and foundries where a thin refractory lining shows up first as a hot spot on the shell, where ladle location lives on a whiteboard, and where a breakout is the most dangerous event in the plant.
Track every ladle:
- Read ladle numbers from cameras at stations and along crane runways, and track each ladle's location through the shop.
- Record ladle cycle steps (tap, secondary metallurgy, caster, dump, preheat) with timestamps.
- Show ladle status and cycle time so the shop runs the right number of ladles in rotation.
Refractory and slag condition:
- Map shell temperature from thermal cameras and flag hot spots that point to thin refractory, tied to the ladle number.
- Trend shell temperature per ladle over its campaign so relines are planned before a hot spot becomes a breakout.
- Detect slag line wear, skull, and build-up at the lip after dumping.
Pouring and people:
- Watch the tap and pour stream for splashing, slag carryover, and abnormal flow.
- Detect people entering molten metal zones during tapping, pouring, and crane moves
- Log every event with a clip for refractory reviews and incident investigations.
Bring intelligence to every ladle today. Stop refractory hot spots and lost ladles from becoming breakouts, delays, and injuries.
Frequently asked questions
What is ladle monitoring with Vision AI?
Ladle monitoring with Vision AI uses thermal and visual cameras at ladle stations, crane runways, and pour points and a trained computer vision model to read ladle numbers, track each ladle through the melt shop, map shell temperature for refractory hot spots, detect slag and skull build-up, and monitor pouring and people near molten metal. It pairs with overhead crane monitoring and steel coil identification and tracking across the mill.
Can Vision AI find refractory hot spots on a moving ladle?
Yes. A thermal camera at each station or on the crane runway captures the ladle shell as it passes, a model finds the ladle and reads its number, and the shell temperature map is compared to that ladle's own history and to its neighbors in the rotation. A spot that is hotter than it was last heat, or hotter than the rest of the shell, is flagged with the ladle number so the refractory team can act before the next tap.
Does ladle monitoring support ISO 45001 and ISO 50001?
Ladle monitoring supports melt shop safety programs under ISO 45001 (the occupational health and safety management system standard) with records of hot spots and people near molten metal, quality programs under ISO 9001 (the quality management system standard), and energy programs under ISO 50001 (the energy management system standard) by tracking ladle preheat and cycle time.
Roboflow serves as the monitoring engine, and your steelmaking, refractory, and safety teams own temperature limits, reline decisions, and safety procedures.
Can it integrate with our level 2 systems, crane controls, and historian?
Yes. Roboflow sends ladle IDs, locations, temperatures, and alerts over OPC UA, MQTT, or REST, or writes them to a database, so they feed melt shop level 2 and MES systems, crane controls through a PLC, and historians such as AVEVA PI and Ignition. Refractory data can be joined with heat logs to see how each ladle wears across its campaign.