LOISI

Development of methods and techniques for optimizing logistics in the production of semi-finished steel for the automobile and railway industry

Background

The European steel industry is facing fierce competition on the global market. To remain competitive and secure jobs, Austrian steel manufacturers focus on making high-quality products. For this purpose, significant investments were made in the development of new products and production technologies. This resulted in international technology leadership, which is to be strengthened through further R&D activities.

The consequent focus on quality requires highly complex transportation and storage processes. This is because the quality of a number of steel slabs (billets, blooms) is dependent on specific cooling processes that need to be interwoven with storage processes. Transport and storage logistics therefore become a key factor for the competitiveness and the preservation of production sites in Austria.

Goals

The overarching goal of this cooperative project is to increase resilience in the production and treatment of steel and metal products. Resilience is the ability of a system to adapt to requirements and compensate for disturbances. In the medium to long term, the project results shall allow the development of a simulation-based decision support system for creating resilient intra-logistics systems in the steel industry.

The project will combine methods for simulation-based analysis and design, for robust multi-criteria optimization using meta-heuristics, and for resilience assessment, and evaluate them based on concrete use cases of steel production and treatment.

Project name:

LOISI

Funding:

FFG Programme “Smart Mobility 2015 (OÖ/Stmk)”

Duration:

10/2016 – 03/2019