Outokumpu Stainless

Outokumpu Stainless is a global leader in stainless steel. Their plants are located in Finland, Sweden, U.K. and U.S.A.

Outokumpu Stainless in Degerfors, Sweden, wanted to shortern the lead times towards their customers by instead of ordering tailored steel slabs from the steel plants, they cut the orders from an inventory of standard sized slabs. Of course, the tailored steel slabs comes with a minimium of spill, so the question arose what yield loss one would suffer by cutting from standard slabs.By using the optimization tool OPS, Optimization Partner could show that the yields were kept at acceptable levels. OPS is since June 2010 used on a daily basis to optimize the inventory usage.

Reference person at Outokumpu Stainless is Erik Ozols.