17% less steel with no customer order in steel shop heat formation

−17%

of cast steel with no customer order, from 12.61% to 10.47% of cast volume, in a simulation with 12 months of real demand

12 of 12

months with less unallocated steel

−20%

on the rolling line with the most scenarios, from 13.20% to 10.54% of cast volume

Automatic

heat formation by the algorithm, a task that used to be manual and time-consuming

Each heat has a maximum volume, set by the capacity of the steel shop equipment. Orders rarely add up to exactly that volume, and what is left over becomes free volume: cast steel with no customer order, which sits in the yard with no destination and lowers logistics efficiency.

Forming heats means fitting orders under many rules at the same time:

• Compatibility. Heats on the same strand must have the same thickness and the same casting type, and each order must fit the strand width.
• Due date. Orders within each heat follow the order of their delivery dates.
• Quality. Only compatible steel grades can share a heat.

Done by hand, heat formation is slow and takes significant operational effort.

With Enacom’s Planning Digital Twin, heat formation now follows an explicit order: first reduce unallocated steel, then delays, and only then resort to combining steel grades.

1. Prioritizes orders

   by volume, by delay, and by the possibility of combining with other grades.

2. Fills each heat as a packing problem

   it adds orders up to capacity, tests swaps to find combinations that leave less steel over, and respects thickness, casting type, strand width, and due dates.

3. Completes the heat with a compatible grade when space is left

   the remaining volume goes to a grade with a less demanding specification, according to the mill’s compatibility matrix. It then balances the strands and eliminates heats with no orders.

The algorithm was run on 12 months of real demand, with and without the combination of compatible grades. With the combination, cast steel with no customer order fell from 12.61% to 10.47% of cast volume on average: 17% less volume with no destination in the yard, and less in all 12 months.

The gain shows up on both rolling lines served. On the line with the most scenarios, volume with no customer order fell from 13.20% to 10.54% (−20%); on the other, from 11.14% to 9.91% (−11%). That is why each line should be assessed separately: the flexibility of the order book determines how much is gained.

• Less stock with no destination. Less cast steel with no customer order sitting in the yard.
• Heats full of orders. The capacity of each heat is filled with real demand.
• Quality preserved. Only grades allowed by the mill’s compatibility matrix share a heat.
• Planners free to analyze instead of building heats by hand, in a solution that coexists with the ERP, MES, and APS already in use.

• Your steel shop produces cast steel with no order that sits idle in the yard.
• The order book has many grades and widths, with compatibility rules between them.
• Heats are still formed by hand or in a spreadsheet, by a few specialists.

We start from your data: we customize the twin, validate the result in scenarios and a pilot, and only then scale. The results in this case reflect the conditions of that mill.