Multivariate Estimation of the Production Time for Steel-Wire Batches by Means of Situational–Normative Models. Part 1

Abstract—Attention focuses on models that may be used to synthesize situational (multivariate) procedures for assessing the standard production time of steel-wire batches in a system with independently functioning subdivisions characterized by continuous, semicontinuous, and discrete industrial processes (etching, drawing, annealing, and copper plating). Those subdivisions form part of unified material fluxes. In the system, numerous pathways permit the production of a wide range of steel wire. Those pathways are characterized by different standards; grades of steel; product diameter, shape, and mass; multivariate specialization of the drawing mills; flexible relations between the subdivisions; parallel, series, and hybrid operation of the primary and auxiliary equipment; and the use of specialized transport systems (cranes, conveyers, rail cars, and electric cars). Systems analysis of the wire-production system permits determination and description of the production pathways within individual departments; assessment of their characteristics; development of graphical models of the production processes reflecting serial and parallel operations; resolution of the models into components and microcomponents for each department; identification of key factors characterizing the organization of the production processes for all the departments; and development of normative models of the operations by combining different research methods. An incremental approach is used here. Factorial models are formulated for the piecewise situational increment in the operation of a drawing mill of type s—in particular, for the subsystem consisting of the etching bath and crane, the furnace, and the copper-plating line. In addition, the concept of an equivalent piecewise operating increment is introduced, so as to permit comparison with the increment for the rough-drawing mills. To ensure that the rough-drawing department is coordinated with the other departments, the necessary quantity of etching, heating, fine-drawing, and copper-plating equipment is determined. Models of the interrelated batch-by-batch operating increments for the departments before and after the rough-drawing department are developed. The synchronization of their operation is determined by comparing the operating increments per batch for the equipment and transport systems at the input and input of each department. That entails preliminary formulation of normative models of the transport systems’ operating increments. On that basis, an algorithm may be outlined for assessing the production time of batches of steel wire. That algorithm will be presented in part 2 of this study.