Right-First-Time Production: A Reality or a Myth?

There is no doubt that the move towards the development of cost-effective quality products in a highly competitive market has shaped engineering practices and processes in the production of components. The constituents as well as the processing of materials have now become an integral part of the design process where the required mechanical properties have to be optimized for a given application and at minimal cost not only to the economy but also to the environment. In the case of steel-making companies, very high standards of surface quality and tighter specifications on hot-rolled strips are constantly being set which, more often than not, result in stringent demands being imposed on the specified metallurgical properties. The quality of the strip product may vary depending on how the strip is processed when it passes through the hot strip mill. It is, therefore, important to develop thermomechanical process models which will allow one to predict the evolution of microstructure and the mechanical properties of the strip during the course of fabrication. The acid test, of course, rests with the ability to reverse-engineer (invert) such models in order to control (optimize) the microstructure, and one might argue the ensuing mechanical properties of the material, via the chemistry, the temperature profiles, and the mill schedule. The research activities associated with the Institute for Microstructural and Mechanical Process Engineering: The University of Sheffield (IMMPETUS) which was founded in 1997 lead to truly integrated interdisciplinary research across the disciplines of systems, mechanical, and metallurgical engineering. The article focuses on the integration of systems engineering paradigms for intelligent modeling and optimization of the mechanical properties of materials, in particular steel, to achieve right-first-time production, a challenge for academia in general, and in particular for IMMPETUS.