Optimal inter-process steel production scheduling

Optimal scheduling of production through the hot strip mill of a steel manufacturing facility is characterized by multiple and conflicting objectives. A production strategy designed to achieve maximum product quality may be expensive and cumbersome in terms of overall throughput while a strategy that achieves high volume production may sacrifice product quality. By considering the hot strip mill as an isolated production facility, a ‘just in time delivery’ scenario can be modeled as a goal program. With experience, the goal programming model can be calibrated to simulate the decision of those experts responsible for developing the production schedule making mill operations more consistent and cost effective.