Manufacturing Software for an Integrated Steel Plant
Ashfaque Ahmed - July 30, 2004

Introduction

An integrated steel plant is huge by any measurement. Capacity is generally more than 1 million tonnes per annum and in many big plants, it is more than 10 million tonnes per annum. The raw materials that are consumed are also in huge quantities, be it coal (coking coal or non-coking coal depending on technology used for iron making), iron ore, lime stone, dolomite or any other raw material. Properties of these raw materials vary greatly. Despite the mixing and refinement done at the mines before shipping to a steel plant, these are natural raw materials and variations in properties are still present when it reaches the plant. Other problem is that due to large requirement of raw materials, sourcing comes from many sources and raw material properties from these places will vary greatly. For example, iron ore found in one geographical area will have greatly different properties than iron ore found in some other geographical area...