Online Profit Optimization During Production Through Total Transparency of Process Costs

摘要

Nowadays, on-line process control and optimization in the metallurgical industry are focused on technical and technological parameters like material dimensions, time-temperature-regimes, etc. But in addition to these quality aspects, the optimization of the process-economy is the center of focus of production managers and it is only logical to extend the technical control functions of the applied systems into the field of econometrics. The target of these functions is to continuously monitor and evaluate the total production costs and the corresponding profit for a certain product or product class online. In addition to the easy to estimate direct costs, the evaluation of indirect costs that are caused by disturbances or out-of tolerance productions, is of special interest. For example, in a hot strip mill the cobble rate increases with the production of thinner strips. The production costs of thinner strips are higher because they simply consume more energy, have lower yield, cause more roll wear and use more of the totalrolling time available. Therefore, it has to be carefully evaluated if the higher sales price per ton is sufficient to make the production of thin strips economically attractive. In addition to this on-line tracking of profit, the gained knowledge could also be used in an off-line fashion, which would help the hot strip mill manager get an overview of the real costs for different grade groups by simulation to optimize the product mix.