A Scheduling Model for LTV Steel's Cleveland Works' Twin Strand Continuous Slab Caster

In 1983, the LTV Steel Company started up a twin strand continuous slab caster to convert molten steel to solid steel slabs. Located at LTV's Cleveland Works, the caster is scheduled by a minicomputer-based system that includes a heuristic algorithm that is used to select the best casting sequences daily. The Cleveland Works has benefited greatly from the scheduling system, with its major benefit the high quality steel produced daily to customer orders. The Cleveland caster currently holds the North American monthly production record for a steel-casting machine. The caster-scheduling system annually saves the LTV Steel Company $1.95 million in combined manpower savings and increased production.