Metaheuristics for meltshop scheduling in the steel industry

The scheduling of a meltshop at an integrated steel plant is a very complex and important logistical industrial problem. This problem requires the synchronization of several steelmaking furnaces, degassing facilities, ladle treatment stations, and continuous casters. In this paper, we discuss how an efficient domain-specific heuristic is combined with metaheuristic approaches in a prototype scheduling model. Specifically, given preliminary schedules for the continuous casters, the model determines the allocation, sequencing, and scheduling of batches of steel at the basic oxygen steelmaking furnaces, the degassing facilities, and the ladle treatment stations. It also makes the appropriate schedule modifications at the continuous casters. Computational results will be discussed.