Abstract
Hot rolling consumes one third of the energy in a steel plant. Increasing product variety slows down production flow, causing heat losses and increased reheating energy consumption. A system dynamics model was developed to evaluate how flexibility influences energy use. Results indicate that world best practice requires high flexibility and low to intermediate product variety. Up to 28% less reheating was needed for low product variety, but no improvement was obtained for high product variety; a flexible steelmaking process for efficient production of small batches of steel would be required. The strategic nature of process flexibility investments is discussed.
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Storck, J. (2012). Product variety, flexibility and energy use in hot rolling mills. In: ElMaraghy, H. (eds) Enabling Manufacturing Competitiveness and Economic Sustainability. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23860-4_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23860-4_13
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