Back

Dynamic Hot Charging

As energy costs rise, hot charging is becoming the norm.  A much requested scheduling functionality for QMOS has been the ability to assign heats in real-time for hot charging.

With the release of QMOS Version 10.4 and now 10.5, a new Hot Charge screen has been designed allowing operators to assign heats to the appropriate work order as they come off the caster – in real-time.  Its premise is simple: QMOS recognizes billets that have been cast within a user definable period as “hot charged”.  These billets are available for the user to assign to the current work order.  With available tools in QMOS, the user has the ability to easily and quickly add these billets to the heat lineup with minimal effort.  The available standard filters include criteria’s such as grade, chemistry, billet size, weight, and even yield, are built in to aid the user in finding and selecting the correct heat.  Once inserted into the heat lineup, the billet status is changed marked as Assigned and sensors at the entry of the reheat furnace change the status of individual billets to Charged as they move into the furnace, thereby eliminating the need for the currently used Charge Screen. 

The new Hot Charge screen is developed to complement your current QMOS Assigning functionality.  The Scheduler can continue to schedule any billets of a heat (including hot charges) or leave it all to the Hot Charge screen operator.  Available reports will provide a variety of statistical and performance related information which would allow the Rolling Mill to evaluate how effective their hot charging operation is.  This data gives them the ability to fine tune the hot charging process for maximum effectiveness across their entire product range. Based on the available data, a mill may also provide incentive programs to their crew based on hot charging performance.

Back