Strategic capacity and investment roadmap planning

Abstract

A number of strategic roadmaps have been formulated by Hatch for investment planning related to capacity expansion for several steel companies [1-6]. These roadmaps were developed to assist senior management in deciding the best way to reconfigure and invest in the steel production chain to achieve their future business objectives. The roadmaps consider all major operations of the steel plant: receiving and storing of raw materials, ironmaking, steelmaking, casting, rolling, finishing, warehousing, and shipping of finished product. The strategic roadmaps help determine / derive the best possible holistic solutions at early phases of the capital expansion projects, where the value-addition and savings opportunities are the greatest, to attain the corporate targets set for the key performance indicators (KPIs) with minimal capital investment, improved operating practices / procedures and lower operating costs. The development of holistic solutions involves process and discipline engineering as well as dynamic logistics simulation. Project implementation and constructability aspects are evaluated to ensure that the recommended solutions (addition of new units / upgrade of old units / modifications) are feasible to implement considering the constraints in the plant. The strategic roadmap is an effective way for the planning of the different improvements / investments (and the sequence and timing of implementation) for maximizing plant capacity.