Cooling and heating times of apparatus in the steel industries: Effects on production planning, control, and maintenance performance

This paper states and alerts over the overall and attribution of cooling and heating times of apparatus or furnaces as the indicators utilized for the assessment of the maintenance performance and production planning. It states that, where the variable temperature is present in any hot processing apparatus of the steel industries, the maintenance group should act integrated with production in order to adequate the planning practices sharing the responsibilities. The time of apparatus stoppage or operational unavailability for production does not follow the standard and attribution as an indicator for the “time taken to repair” or the “time without production”, which depends on the cause of the needs to stop. In the case of maintenance process such times are recorded as the total time of intervention. Through the survey was possible to assert that the cooling and heating times are not considered separately. Ratios between the total time of stoppage with cooling time, repair maintenance time, and heating time ready for production were investigated. The conclusion of the study shows that integrated planning is an important factor for optimized planning and control for the efficacy of production output of the company.