Jan. 2007 — Broner Metals Solutions has been awarded a major project to provide scheduling solutions for Mittal Steel South Africa’s Vanderbijlpark Works.

Vanderbijlpark, the largest of Mittal Steel South Africa’s four plants, represents unusually challenging conditions for planning and scheduling, because of the wide variety of plate and strip products produced as well as the facility’s intricate product routings. Broner will provide a comprehensive scheduling solution to manage the electric steelmaking, oxygen steelmaking, hot strip mill and plate mill areas of the plant.

The project will use Broner’s standard metals supply chain modules for scheduling the four plant areas, each of which has its own special production constraints and complexities. The Broner solution will be implemented using packaged modules, which encapsulate 20 years experience in managing the complex rules and constraints of steel manufacture. The solution includes the Broner Caster Scheduler, Hot Mill Scheduler, Schedule Editor and Meltshop Control Center modules, which will be fully integrated with SAP ERP modules and with MES functions, based on the InfoPlus.21 family of MES products previously supplied by Broner. This will result in a comprehensive supply chain management solution that will deliver more agile manufacturing and improved customer service.

Arcelor Mittal is the world's number one steel company, with 330,000 employees in more than 60 countries. Mittal Steel South Africa is the African continent’s largest steel producer, with a steelmaking capacity in excess of 7 million tonnes per annum. Mittal Steel South Africa has four steelmaking operations: Vanderbijlpark Steel and Saldanha Steel (flat products) and Newcastle Steel and Vereeniging Steel (long products). It also has a metallurgical by-products processing division, Coke & Chemicals.

Vanderbijlpark Steel is an integrated flat products plant that produces 3.5 million tons of liquid steel a year and comprises six coke oven batteries, a sinter plant (two strands), two blast furnaces and a direct reduction plant (four kilns). The meltshop comprises three electric arc furnaces, three basic oxygen furnaces, and three continuous casters. The facility also includes a 3,650-mm plate mill, and a 2,050-mm hot strip mill (seven stands).

Broner Metals Solutions specializes in delivering value to the steel and aluminum industries through supply chain planning, scheduling and manufacturing execution systems and consultancy. Broner Metals Solutions product range includes demand management, sales and operation planning, availability to promise, capability to promise, advanced planning and scheduling and manufacturing execution solutions.

Broner Metals Solutions is the global corporate standard supplier of production scheduling and MES solutions to the world’s largest steel company, Mittal Steel, as well as other metals companies such as Baosteel, Dofasco, Corus, Cosipa, CSN, Gerdau, Nippon Steel, Norandal, OMK, Taiyuan Steel (TISCO), TMK, and Usiminas. Broner Metals Solutions is part of Hyperion Systems Engineering Ltd.