USING A FACILITY LOCATION ALGORITHM TO DETERMINE OPTIMUM CAST BLOOM LENGTHS

The dimensions of a bloom, which is a rectangular piece of steel, are critical for efficiently and effectively rolling the bloom into a fini shed structural shape (I-beam) for sale to the customer. To achieve ma ximum productivity and yield, the bloom size (thickness, width and len gth) to be rolled on a finishing mill into a structural shape must be determined by steel deformation experts. Suppose, for a particular fin ishing mill, these 'rolled' blooms are all produced from a 'cast' bloo m of the same cross-section but with many different lengths. It is nec esssary to consolidate the many 'cast' bloom length-metallurgical grad e combinations to a number that can be managed by the casting operatio n and bloom stockyard without significantly impacting productivity and yield. An uncapacitated facility location problem formulation and alg orithm were used to solve this problem. The way in which this approach was used to solve a real-world application is discussed.