A review of planning and scheduling systems and methods for integrated steel production

Iron and steel industry is an essential and sizable sector for industrialized economies. Since it is capital and energy extensive, companies have been putting consistent emphasis on technology advances in the production process to increase productivity and to save energy. The modern integrated process of steelmaking, continuous casting and hot rolling (SM–CC–HR) directly connects the steelmaking furnace, the continuous caster and the hot rolling mill with hot metal flow and makes a synchronized production. Such a process has many advantages over the traditional cold charge process. However, it also brings new challenges for production planning and scheduling. In this paper we first give a comparative analysis of the production processes and production management problems for the SM–CC–HR and the traditional cold charge process. We then review planning and scheduling systems developed and methods used for SM–CC–HR production. Finally some key issues for further research in this field are discussed.