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The article presents a methodology for measuring the metallurgical supply chain resilience, which enables the ascertainment of key resilience capabilities and measurable criteria, and determining a level of the resilience. The methodology is based on Analytic Network Process (ANP), which is used to solve the complex decision-making problems, whose structures can be mapped as non-linear networks. Since ambiguous pairwise comparisons expressed by fuzzy sets are considered, the Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (FANP) is applied. The methodology is verified on the generalised model of a metallurgical supply chain. The SuperDecisions software was used for the application. The experiments performed demonstrate the high level of suitability of the FANP approach for measuring metallurgical supply chain resilience.

The main purpose of this paper is to compare the technical efficiency of 12 sectors manufacturing basic metals and metal products in Poland. This article presents the use of Data Envelopment Analysis models, to determine overall technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency of metallurgical branches in Poland. The average technical efficiency of metallurgical industry in Poland was quite high. The analysis gives a possibility to create a ranking of sectors. Three branches were found to be fully efficient: manufacture of basic iron and steel and of ferroalloys, manufacture of basic precious and other non - ferrous metals and manufacture of tubes, pipes, hollow profiles and related fittings, of steel. The results point out the reasons of the inefficiency and provide improving directions for the inefficient sectors.

The article presents a computer simulation-based model for analysis of supply chain resilience, which allows determining and verifying the generally valid principles, capabilities and ways for building long-term resilience of global supply chains against serious disruptions. The model is created on the basis of a supply chain from automotive industry and contains the main logistics flows used by present automotive producers. Any real automotive supply chain can be modelled as a combination of these logistics flows. The model was created in DOSIMIS-3® and verified using experimental data. The performed simulation demonstrates a significant decrease of the supply chain performance in case of serious disruption occurrence.

Maintenance today contributes to the aim of sustainable development in society, including environmental and energy saving, safety and economical aspects. The main purpose of the paper is to present the role of maintenance in the realization of sustainable developing practices in a foundry industry. Maintenance offers numerous opportunities to reduce the influence of foundry processes on the natural environment and utilize resources more efficiently. Maintenance activities can help to reduce losses and thereby improve the efficiency of the processes used in the production of resources (e.g. raw materials, energy, etc.), especially in areas such as: the choice of an appropriate strategy for the maintenance of machinery and equipment (e.g. reactive, preventive, proactive); inventory management of spare parts; lubrication management and management of technology media.

In this paper, the research results of surveys which were conducted in a Polish metallurgical cluster and among enterprises which are potential members of such production networks are presented. These results show that there is a high level of free capacity that can be used in the formation of production networks. The idea of the creation of long term clusters of industry or service enterprises give new possibilities to increase performance and productivity and seek higher levels of innovation. Through exploitation of the synergy effect, such concepts allow better economic results and a competitive advantage over other market players to be obtained. The key concerns about the functioning of enterprises in production networks within a cluster are following: a lack of confidence in potential partners, loss of data and concerns about the division of costs and revenues.

The objective of this article is to define the factors that have the most profound impact on the outputs of human resource (HR) plans and on the business plans they should be based on. The solution involved the Delphi and the Analytic Network Process (ANP) method and close cooperation with HR specialists from the Czech metallurgical branch.

The production of iron in blast furnaces is a complex of physical, chemical and mechanical processes. The input raw materials contain not only metallic components, but also a number of negative elements. The most important negative elements include alkaline carbonates. They can significantly affect the course of the blast furnace process and thus the overall performance of the furnace. As a result of that, it is essential to accurately monitor the alkali content in the blast furnace raw materials. The article analyzes the alkali content in input and output raw materials and their impact on the blast furnace process.

Current principles of evaluation of ore raw materials are usually based on a comparison of selected isolated criteria. Today‘s sophisticated technological level of blast furnace process requires the introduction of raw material indicators that provide global characteristics of their quality. This can´t be realized with isolated parameters only. The evaluation should incorporate the key characteristics of iron ore and convert them into a uniform evaluation parameter. This article analyzes the use of mathematical methods in the evaluation of the quality of ore raw materials.

Heavy machinery industry is characterized by a number of specific features that cause significant variations in the processing time of products in the individual workplaces and frequent occurrence of floating bottlenecks, which change their positions. Depending on the product range being processed, a given workplace is the bottleneck only for some period of time. When the bottleneck moves to another workplace, it leads to unnecessary loss of capacity of the floating bottleneck. To maximize the utilization, it is necessary to protect those bottlenecks by creating special buffers. The objective of this article is to design a methodology used for the determination and control of buffers that are going to protect the floating bottlenecks from operating capacity losses caused by transfer of the constrain to another workplace. These buffers are referred to as „power buffers“. The designed methodology has been verified in the process of forged pieces machining.

Production of blast furnace sinter is among the processes with the highest energy and material requirements. Fuel consumption is especially significant cost item here. The presence of grate sintered in charge, i.e. return sinter from 12 to 22 mm in size, can have fundamental impact on the technical and economic indicators of the sintering process. Grate sinter can be used as a foundation layer under the sintering mixture, to increase air permeability of charge and to improve the gas-dynamic conditions. The article analyzes the impact of grate sinter on the sintering process, based on an analysis of the acquired production indicators within the scope of the research in question.

The main objectives of blast-furnace operators include maximum production of pig iron of required chemical composition at minimal cost. This can be ensured only in case of quality raw material basis and trouble-free operation of blast-furnace. Both parameters are influenced by the concentration of undesirable elements. The negative elements contained in the blast-furnace raw materials cause many technological problems in the sintering as well as in the blast-furnace process. These are mainly heavy metals and alkaline carbonates. The article deals with the analysis of material balance of zinc and selected alkaline carbonates contents in the input raw materials and output products of the blast-furnace.

The ideal balance between innovating and effective financing is provided by the Lean principles. The basic principle of Lean is to eliminate the wastes and to increase the efficiency of production processes. The objective of this article is to define the basic specifics of metallurgical production, to analyze the classical sources of wastes (Ohno’s seven wastes) from the point of view of the identified specifics and to propose the priorities for their elimination in metallurgical production.

The paper presents a heuristic algorithm for planning and scheduling of forged pieces heat treatment which allows maximizing the capacity exploitation of the heat treatment process and the entire forging process. Five Focusing Steps continuous improvement process was selected as a methodological basis for the algorithm design. Its application was supported by simulation experiments performed on a dynamic computer model of the researched process. The experimental work has made it possible to elicit the general rules for planning and scheduling of the heat treatment process of forged pieces which reduce losses caused by equipment conversion and setup times, and which increase the throughput of this process. The HIPO diagram was used to design the algorithm.

Ferrous metallurgy is inherently a highly intensive field in terms of energy and raw materials. The impacts of high energy intensity are enormous: the necessary production of larger amount of energy related to high emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases, associated with increasing negative impacts on the state of the environment and the health of inhabitants. The article suggests the possibility of using the method of structural analysis to calculate direct and complex ecological intensity and to use it as a basis to determine the ecological intensity of the individual metallurgical technologies. The processing of ecological structural model can significantly contribute to the identification of ecologically intensive final products and can improve the decision-making process in this area.

A significant problem of small and medium enterprises in the metallurgical sector is that submitted orders very often exceed the individual production capacity at the disposal of each company according to production capacity limitations (machinery, equipment and time availability), competencies, skills, etc. Therefore, the idea of the creation of virtual production networks (VPN) of small and medium enterprises within a metallurgical cluster appears to be particularly attractive. The development of such networks depends on design solutions and tools which help companies to quickly plan a VPN to jointly execute production orders. In the paper, the new method for formation and rapid planning of virtual production network within metallurgical clusters is proposed.

The paper introduces a new concept for planning and control of complicated heavy machinery production which is based on the principle of „production paths“ – production paths planning and control concept. The concept reflects the limited applicability of traditional concepts and systems for production planning and control in conditions of heavy machinery industry that is specific by the limited repeatability of product structures and volumes, by complicated and variant material flows and unbalanced capacity utilisation. The production path represents a production capacity reserved by time or a space and is determined for the realisation of products with the same level of production repeatability. The given principle enables categorisation of the complicated production to „fast“ and „slow“ production paths. The fast production path is designed for processing of products specific either by a mass or series production type. The slow path, on the other hand, is designed for the resources reserved for a production of few series or single-pieces. The proposed concept significantly reduces difficulties of heavy machinery production planning and control. It cuts work in process inventory and improves the material flow continuousness, the balance and utilisation of production resources as well as the whole production process. The benefits from the implementation of the production paths concept are verified on the forged pieces machining process.

Many European metallurgical companies are forced to import iron ore from remote destinations. For these companies it is necessary to determine the amount of iron ore that will have to be ordered and to create such a delivery schedule so that the continuous operation of blast-furnace plant is not disrupted and there is no exceedingly large stock of this raw material. The objective of this article is to design the decision support system for iron ore supply which would effi ciently reduce uncertainty and risk of that decision-making. The article proposes a hybrid intelligent system which represents a combination of diff erent artifi cial intelligence methods with dynamic simulation technique for that purpose.

The present approach to capacity planning in operations producing heavy metal shapes causes problems in fulfilling the required financial and volume indexes in production, as well as in meeting the work order completion dates. The article represents the methodology for optimal production scheduling in operations producing heavy plate cut shapes, which significantly eliminates the above-mentioned problems. The methodology is based on the application Generalized Assignment Problem (GAP).