A Dynamic Scheduling and Control System in an ENSIDESA Steel Plant

When we at Empresa Nacional Siderúrgica (ENSIDESA) built our new steel plant in 1988, we emphasized automatic control in the various production sections, giving the process computers continuous and complete information throughout the production process. Making use of this information, we designed an automatic coordinating system for each facility in the plant. We designed this system by dynamically updating previous schedules, taking into account every possible event or delay to create a complete and systematic schedule each heat should follow to avoid scheduling breakdowns.