Research On Optimization Of Production Operation In Steel Plant Based On Logistics Simulation

The steel industry is one of the most crucial pillar industries to national economyin China. Steel-making process is key process in influencing product quality and outputin steel manufacture process. Investigation on logistics characteristics and reasonableproduction organization in steel-making plant is essential to escalate firms’ marketcompetitiveness. However, the logistics optimization in steel-making process is amulti-objective, multi-constraint and uncertain NP-hard problem. Because simulationcould avoid analyzing this problem from the aspect of theory, it becomes a key mean tostudy the logistics optimization in steel-making process,.This dissertation aims at how to optimize production process through simulation.It is based on actual production process of certain steel-making plant in China. Theresearch is carried with the “Simulation System for Logistics in Steel-making Process”.A simulation model, which contains desulfurization, slag-off, vanadium-extracting,converter, LF, RH, continuous casting, has been built on the system in accordance withthis plant’s current production process. The model verifying experiments shows that the"Simulation System for Logistics in Steel-making Process" has great adaptability tocurrent production process. When input is similar, there is no obvious differencebetween simulation result and real value of the whole logistic time. The experimentsprove that the simulation model could be used to do some research on operationoptimization of production logistics.It is further shown that the simulation model can build up model for differentproduction mode of this steel-making plant. Simulation can disclosure bottleneck ofdifferent production model under different production conditions. As for mode I,vanadium-extracting process is bottleneck when the arrival of the hot metal from blastfurnaces is4ladles/60min, but when the arrival of the hot metal from blast furnaces ismore than4ladles/60min, desulfurization process is bottleneck. As for mode II,desulfurization process is bottleneck when the arrival of the hot metal from blastfurnaces is4ladles/60min and the casting cycle of continuous casting stays unchanged.At this time, accelerating the casting cycle of continuous casting would make thevanadium-extracting process becomes bottleneck. When the arrival of the hot metalfrom blast furnaces is more than4ladles/60min, no matter how to change the castingcycle of continuous casting, desulfurization process is still bottleneck. Further simulation analysis is help to make decision for improving productionefficiency of different production mode. As for mode I, it is shown that when the arrivalof the hot metal from blast furnace is less than5ladles/60min, it is good for improvingproduction efficiency to accelerate the arrival of the hot metal from blast furnace andthe casting cycle of continuous casting, however, when the arrival of the hot metal fromblast furnace is more than5ladles/60min, accelerating the arrival of the hot metal fromblast furnace is disadvantage for improving production efficiency. At this time, it stillworks to accelerate the casting cycle of continuous casting. Therefore, the best rhythmof the arrival of the hot metal from blast furnace for mode I is5ladles/60min. As formode II, it is harmful for improving production efficiency to accelerate the arrival of thehot metal from blast furnace. On the other side, accelerating the casting cycle ofcontinuous casting is always benefit for improving production efficiency. Therefore, thebest rhythm of the arrival of the hot metal from blast furnace for mode II is4ladles/60min...