Seznam abstraktů 2015: POSTEROVÁ SEKCE F

The paper describes the application of SMED methodology in a chosen enterprise dealing with production of deep drawn steel parts for automotive industry. Acronym SMED stands for "Single Minute Exchange of Die". The main goal of SMED methodology is to reduce the time needed for tool exchange and adjustment. Radical shortening of these times, for instance from several hours to a few minutes, is achieved progressively by changes in the tool exchange organization, standardization of the tool exchange procedures, staff training, special aids and technical modifications of the tool or of the press machine. The aim is to move as many internal activities as possible into external. The internal activities are those that are done during machine shutdown, the external activities are done while the machine is running. The goal of this paper is to define the main contributions of SMED methodology application in the case of the chosen product series running on a specific machine. The instrument used to achieve the intended aim is the above defined sequence of SMED methodology steps.

The article presents efficiency and productivity analysis of US metal industry in 2006-2014. The main purpose of this paper is to compare the efficiency of 6 sectors manufacturing metal products in US. The study applies the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI), which was used to analyze changes in metal industry productivity. The study indicated that technological progress had a greater impact on the change in productivity of metal industry in US than changes in technical efficiency. Meanwhile, the highest average index of changes in MPI during the period was achieved by metal pipe and tube manufacturing.

The paper deals with porosity of metallurgical sinter. It is aimed at the research on relation between porosity and reducibility of sinter. It evaluates the relation between these two properties in economical point of view of pig iron production. In the introduction, the paper sums up international experience with testing of materials porosity. It defines main qualitative properties of metallurgical sinter beside porosity such as its reducibility and disintegration in relation with porosity determination. In the main part, the paper presents results of porosity tests. It describes the experimental method used for it and conditions for it. There is compared porosity of samples with high and low reducibility. The effect of porosity on reducibility is studied. It is interpreted on the economics of production process. The effect of porosity sinter characterized with indicator of reducibility on gas consumption during pig iron production is presented.

Ecodesign of blades used in steam turbines is the example of integrating environmental aspects into the process of designing and development of a product during life cycle. The life cycle of blades begins with extraction of raw materials and manufacturing steel products used as material charge in the process of their production. Among the activities that can decrease environmental impact of blades during life cycle is considering the environmental profile of used steel. The aim of the article is identification of environmental aspects connected to alternative ecodesign variants created during modeling of using different steel products to manufacturing the blades and also determining potential and needs connected to elaborating environmental profile of blades life cycle. Environmental aspects concerning using different steel products are considered in relation to various forms of material (hot rolled steel bars, forged bars, matrix forgings), and types of steel (e.g. X20Cr13, X12Cr13). Identification of ecodesign variants was made on base of consultations in a company that designs and produces the blades. The design variants are analyzed basing on LCI data concerning steel, taking into account ecodesign approaches and principles. The analysis of usability of specific LCI databases and LCIA methods was also carried out. The analyzed problem can lead to determine possibilities of integrating environmental aspects concerning steel into design of blades, also in context of life cycle management. Presented considerations can be helpful in improving logistic chains and in making decisions connected with elaboration and implementation of eco-innovations.

The key elements affecting the technology of pig iron production include zinc and all its compounds. Zinc generally belongs to heavy metals. It has very negative impact during the production of iron, as well as on the quality of the produced metal itself. With regards to the physical and chemical properties of these metals, there is a cycle between the lower parts of blast furnace with high temperatures, which lead to reduction and vaporization, and upper parts of the furnace shaft with low temperatures, where the vapour condenses. Zinc affects especially the quality and life of blast furnace lining within the blast furnace process. Zinc gradually builds up and causes continuous degradation of blast furnace lining. The amount of zinc in blast furnace lining is different in its individual parts. This is given by the blast furnace process sequence, especially the amount of zinc entering the process in the form of the input raw materials. The research has experimentally determined the amount of zinc in the input and output raw materials and the quantities allocated in the selected parts of blast furnace lining. The objective of this article is to analyze the main sources of zinc entering the blast furnace process and to identify its effect on the life and quality of blast furnace lining.

Alloys that have lamellar structures, e.g., pearlitic steel, are widely used in practice. Nowadays, perlitic steel wires for tire cords, springs and ropes are studied considerably at our laboratory of wire drawing. In the metallographic analysis of pearlie the interlamellar spacings are not the true spacings because the lamellae usually are not oriented perpendicular to the observation planes. Measured interlamellar spacing is called apparent. Evaluation of true interlamellar spacing from microstructural observations is based on the assumption of a uniform distribution of the probability of angle between lamellae and observation planes. However, lamellas change their orientation during cold wire drawing, therefore assumption mentioned above no longer applies. This paper deal with evaluation of numerical characteristics of true interlamellar spacing in drawn pearlitic steel wire. We analyzed the wires from C78D steel for ropes with varying degrees of deformation.

Stock is generally considered to be a sign of incomplete material flow control in logistics and supply chains. However, it often cannot be eliminated, because the specific conditions in the link do not allow doing so for a variety of reasons. It is not possible to achieve full coordination of material flows based on the implementation of modern methods of material flow management, such as the CPFR method (Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment). The paper presents results of two primary researches carried out in metallurgy wholesale and an engineering company that uses metallurgical materials as input. It evaluates the research results and makes comparisons between inventory management approaches of the two companies. It also shows how the inventory management approaches in these companies affect the specific conditions prevailing among their suppliers of metallurgical materials, i.e. the specific conditions associated with metallurgical production.

More than half of the material outputs throughout the production of iron and steel passes into outputs in the form of off-gas and solid waste, respectively. In the past, waste deposited in landfills, but new technologies, especially new ways of producing iron allows for greater share increase reuse and recycling of metallurgical waste. Utilization of metallurgical wastes in a closed production cycle, it means: the contribution of economic balance, reduce the need for dump, improving hygiene.

Companies operating under conditions of global economy which can be characterized by increasing international competition, search for sources and methods to reach profitability and competitive edge. At the moment, the most important is to create and implement various kinds of innovations. Attribute of innovations is the changes and innovativeness that is whyIncreasing competitiveness and globalization as well as crisis phenomena affect the whole economy, including the metallurgical sector. This sector can be characterized by high degree of consolidation and it is susceptible to economic situation variations. In this context, metallurgical companies, if they want to effectively compete, introduce product, process, organizational and marketing innovations, which are frequently related to changes of their business model. Assessment of efficiency and effectiveness of the implemented business models is an important research problem, both from the theoretical and management practice point of view. Basic research questions regarding this issue is: how to measure results and effects gained by changing the business models. These changes were related to high extent to the introduced innovations. The purpose of the paper was the application of BSC to measure results gained upon implementation of changes in the business model. The following research hypothesis was extended: properly composed Balanced Scorecard will allow for assessing effectiveness of its dynamics in metallurgical companies. The subject of the research was structural changes of business models and economic, market, process and development results related to them. Objects of the research (case studies) were two metallurgical companies: the rolling mill of hot- rolled steel products and metallurgical products servicing and trading company.

Metallurgical production in blast furnaces is characterized by its high energy intensity and complex nature of production. Pig iron as input raw material also contains various other elements. These elements are contained in pig iron in the form of compounds, and some of them can be described as harmful for metallurgical production. Harmful elements have a negative impact on the production process, the final product of metallurgical production and some of these elements also have a negative impact on the environment. These elements must be removed by means of various methods because of their deteriorative impact on production. This article deals with the analysis of the presence of harmful elements in the blast furnace process and the potential methods of their removal.

In times of intensive competition for survival in the market, the enterprises are forced to improve their products in order to satisfy customers. The only method for improving the quality is continuous improvement of all the processes that are used in the enterprise, which is possible only through application of the methods and tools of Total Quality Management. The paper analyses non-conformities identified during the process of cutting hot-rolled sheet metal. The non-conformities were hierarchized using a Pareto-Lorenza diagram. An interrelationship diagram was used to identify the relationships between the non-conformities and causes of occurrence of these non-conformities.

One important aspect of business output and performance in the metallurgical industry is a specific working environment and related factors that affect it. In the paper, authors discuss the factors that affect the output and performance of individual workers, particularly in terms of psychosocial aspects of the work environment, whereas within the psychology of work they are generally divided into objective and subjective factors. In each of the groups of these factors it is necessary to consider those with short-term or long-term effects on monitored indicators of workers, as well as those that act upon them directly or indirectly. While changes in the output of individual workers can be monitored at frequent intervals and may be influenced through one-time measures, changes associated with the performance are a matter of a lengthier observation and may be ensured through, and in conjunction with long-term and gradual steps.

Financial performance is a random process which could be decomposed in the particular indices. Often the influence function is of a non-linear form. For a performance analysis is important knowledge of the indices influence. One of the possible random influence measure is variance. However, the problem is more complicated under non-linear function of indices. There is in the paper derived a problem of the non-linear delta method approximation of variance decomposition. Financial performance variance decomposition in metallurgy sector is verified and investigated.

Acknowledgement
This paper has been elaborated in the framework of the IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence project, reg. no. CZ.1.05/1.1.00/02.0070 supported by Operational Programme 'Research and Development for Innovations’ funded by Structural Funds of the European Union and state budget of the Czech Republic. The research was supported by the European Social Fund within the project CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0296 as well.

The article presents applied solutions in the range of supply chain structure of metallurgical products required in machinery and equipment manufacturing taking into account the realisation of contracts to order in selected machine-building enterprises. The study undertakes issues concerning different types of inter-organisational relationships and determinants for the effective implementation of supply processes in a selected company. The study indicates the complexity of an analysed supply chain combining features of both flexible and narrow supply chains.

Most manufacturing companies realize its technologies, implemented through concrete machinery parts. They differ in terms of importance, the relevance of their selection and the level of their modernity. Modernity and efficiency of the machine is also very important during production process of the metal products. Thy have an influence on the quality of these products. The purpose of this article is to analyse the chosen production machine (CNC machine AFE-3D8-T) used during production process of metal products in terms of its modernity. The ABC technology method was chosen do this research. Individual parts of this machine were divided into 3 subassemblies (parts of main subassembly A, parts of supportive subassembly B, parts of collateral subassembly C) and then each part was evaluated on the basis of Parkers' five-point scale.

Achieving high standards of a product quality at minimum cost is only possible using modern methods and approaches of the quality management. For most companies, their application is vital regarding their competitiveness in the business area. This is valid also for the automotive industry, where modern approaches to quality management becoming the standard. One of these approaches mainly used in the automotive industry is PPAP (Production Part Approval Process). The advantage of companies using PPAP consisted mainly in strengthening of supplier awareness of special customer requirements for the particular product. The paper deals with the possibilities of application PPAP for suppliers of metallurgical products. Based on the analysis of selected organizations producing metallurgical products for the automotive industry main advantages of PPAP implementation will be specified.

This paper describes the advanced positioning technology - RFID, GPS and GSM focusing on their use in data collection, processing and modification to optimize decision-making processes in logistics in metallurgical conditions. The paper outlines the importance of logistics distribution and logistics processes in terms steelworks with links to other metallurgical processes. The paper explains the information collection system based on position data gathering, either from standard GPS and position data obtained from the GSM operator, which will be sent to the superior system. This system has support for voice communication between the carrier and the supervisor. Visualization of logistical information will enable decision making and analysis for support of control processes.

The article presents the use of different energy sources in the iron & steel industry in the European Union in the period between 2005 and 2013. The analysis was based on data from Eurostat. It has been found that the iron & steel industry has, during the studied period, decreased its share in final energy consumption from 5.31% to 4.6%. The largest portion of this, 47%, is derived from Solid fuels, with Oil the smallest at only 2.44%. Over the studied period the structure of energy sources used in the iron & steel industry underwent changes. The consumption of Coke oven coke, which in 2005 accounted for 28.38% of energy sources calculated in kilo tonnes of oil equivalent [ktoe] decreased and in 2013 amounted to only 24.57%. However, this was offset by an increase in consumption of other bituminous coal. Great diversity in the structure of energy sources was observed in the iron & steel industry in the surveyed countries. In 2013, the largest share of Solid Fuels was observed in the United Kingdom - 68.96%. The smallest was recorded in Spain and Italy, but those countries were characterised by the decidedly largest share held by Electricity (over 30%).

From a historical point of view, the source of competitive advantage of industrial company was a access to capital and raw materials. The restructuring process has made Polish steel industry able to compete on the international market in the field of technology. However, dynamically changing economic and legal environment still poses new challenges to steel producers. In the article the innovation as an element of competitive advantage of steel company has been shown. The business model of steel company focused on innovation has been proposed. The look at the innovation as a important clue to create modern strategies and business models in steel companies was presented. It has been focused on the structures and rules of creation these models able to innovate. In the article barriers to innovation was also identified. The most important feature of the innovation for the modern steel company should be related to the so-called “creative destruction of management” depending on creation and destruction of structures and processes that go beyond normal adaptation and price competition. It was assumed that these are basic characteristics of steel company of the future, and its basic function should be the innovative business model.

The productivity of the Supply chain management (SCM) system is strongly influenced by the stability of either the production or the delivery processes. Commonly, unpredictable customer demand is understood as the root cause of instability. However, this is not the only source of instability and rigid production and logistics processes and conservative production planning are responsible for it at least in a similar way. Actual competitive markets create strong pressure on productivity which is generally reached by big production lot sizes focusing on unit costs reduction. Nevertheless, the consequences of big production lot sizes create overproduction, which is the source of all kinds of waste, well-known from LEAN production, reducing productivity in the production and delivery processes as a whole. The aim of this article is to propose conceptual framework enabling the quantification of Lean productivity benefits ensuring productivity growth of the whole SCM in the metallurgical industry.

Although the requirements on quality of products are increasing, most companies still pays little attention to product quality planning. Furthest in this direction are automotive suppliers, which include most of metallurgical companies, which use quality planning methodologies developed for this industry area and which must within the framework of production part approval process submit evidence about successful products and processes quality planning. However, even for these companies, there are ways that open the door to further improvement in this area. One of those possibilities is methodology Design for Six Sigma. The paper focuses on selected tools and methods of approach Design for Six Sigma, which can significantly streamline the course of individual phases of product quality planning. With timely deployment of these tools, an organization can significantly contribute to the development of a robust and competitive product while maintaining the idea of Six Sigma approach (maintaining a low proportion of defects in manufacturing the product).

The life cycle thinking is a concept promoted by the World Steel Association as a basic requirement for making all manufacturing decisions. One of the tools of this approach is life cycle costing. It is a process of an economic analysis to assess life cycle costs (LCC) of a product over its life cycle from its conception and fabrication through operation to the end of its life. In most cases the process takes into account only the pure financial costs incurred in the product life cycle called conventional LCC. There is another type of LCC in the literature – the environmental LCC. It comprises all costs of life cycle product directly covered by actors involved in the product life cycle and externalities felt by society and environment, which are anticipated to be internalised in the future. It should be noted that externalities do not have a value determined directly by the market, but there are methods enabling their valuation.
The paper presents the results of research work aimed to evaluate the environmental life cycle costs for two types of steel used for production of blades in steam turbines. Beside evaluation of the conventional LCC, the value of externalities generated in life cycle was assessed by converting the results of life cycle assessment (expressed in DALY, PDF/PAF or MJ) to monetary terms. This allowed to connect and present LCA and LCC results in one value which can be used in the decision-making process where there is a choice of options.

The issue of costs and costing occupies an important place in the data base of industrial controlling. Controlling takes advantage of various methodologies in order to acquire information necessary to perform all its functions. Exact decision-making methods, based on logical and mathematical models, can become an important source of quality information. The use of structural analysis as one of the exact mathematical methods can significantly increase the effectiveness and objectivity of internal and corporate management. This article presents the use of structural analysis to verify the existing method of allocation of overhead costs in a selected company, and it also draws up a calculation of the final amount of handover rates per unit of reference quantity.

This article focuses on combination of the Value Stream Mapping and computer simulation within metallurgy supply chain optimization. The authors´ aim is to build up a conceptual model and verify it so that impacts of supply chain optimization by means of lean concept could be properly identified. Production process planning and management in metallurgy is characterized by high size batches due to technologically-economic reasons. However, high size production batches could hardly correspond with current customer requirements as customers wish to avoid holding a high level stock of incoming material in their warehouses and on their expenses. Searching for optimal parametrization of an interface between supplier production and distribution process and customer requirements is an inevitable task today for companies out of the metallurgical sector. Thus, Value Stream mapping and computer simulation can enable identification of real opportunities for time and cost reduction in a supply chain and refuse insular solution that can only increase effectiveness and efficiency of one company to the detriment of other supply chain elements.

The analysis of non-conformances of metal impeller, which is a part of ventilator, is presented in this paper. This ventilator is used as downcast and exhaust system, which can be relevant in industrial areas with small cubic capacity. Pareto-Lorenz’s analysis, FMEA method and elements of Ishikawa’s analysis were used in this paper. Major non-conformances occurring in product were identified, quantitative analysis of non – conformances was made, reasons of occurrence were determined and ways of prevent were presented.

In the validation and evaluation of conformity between customer requirements and actually achieved quality of the products is always necessary to take into consideration two contradictory requirements. The first of them is the requirement for the most accurate and highest quality measurements or inspection. On the other hand, there is a requirement for the lowest possible financial, time and logistical requirements for the implementation of this measurement or inspection. The aim of this work is to evaluate the quality of the visual inspection of measurable quality characteristic. The quality of this measurement system will be evaluated using three methods used for evaluation of the acceptability of attributive measurement systems.

CastNode platform is a knowledge base dedicated for casting technology and foundries. Application's database (the InnoCast) integrates four components of knowledge: (1) foundries and supplier base, (2) the base of innovation in the field of casting, forging and rolling, (3) database of publications and (4) patents for casting techniques and products. The schema of the relational database is a diagram of a data structure and is divided into several parts, and even though physically it is a one component. We treat each module separately. This is due to the complexity of the application and requirement to process it into a knowledge base where the different parts are merged by keywords, which are common to all components. Additionally, the system is enhanced by a module of knowledge in the form of ontologies, which shows what data is stored and which relationships take place between them. Such a archiving method has many advantages. The main advantage is ease of searching the contents according to users' criteria. In a very extensive database containing several thousands of records, we can search for information in a short period of time. The paper presents the architecture of the CastNode platform and the methodology of integration of technological data using mapping of database schema into ontology.

Economics of blast furnace process, which determines the total cost of production, is one of the most important elements of management in steelworks. In the article the coke consumption from different manufacturers in the blast furnace process in chosen metallurgical plant over five years was presented. Water, ash and volatile matter in the cokes used during this period was analysed. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the research cokes was also made. The obtained data was compared with guidelines contained in the BAT (Best Available Techniques), guideline for Iron and Steel Production.

Production of metallurgical enterprises requires high costs and the production process in blast furnaces is among the most complex manufacturing processes. Blast furnace process is energy intensive and, since the prices of input raw materials have been constantly rising, companies must look for possible ways how to reduce their costs. Metallurgical enterprises are not capable of reducing the prices of input raw materials, which is why the reduction of production costs is the way to go in order to produce cheaper than the competitors. Cost saving is the way to remain competitive in a global scale. One of the potential methods to reduce costs and to simultaneously increase the efficiency of the production process is the application of lean manufacturing principles. This concept was originally introduced in the automotive industry in car production in Toyota Company. Lean production concept has proved to be a very effective tool to improve the manufacturing processes, which is the reason why this concept has been applied in other industrial fields. Lean production in metallurgical processes may contribute to savings and to cost reduction in metallurgical production. This article is focused on the application of lean manufacturing principles in metallurgical processes.

The article is focused on the management of Labour consumption in the metallurgical industry using costing of metallurgical products. Costing is generally used as a tool for cost management, especially variable costs; here in costing there are normally reported consumptions of these costs per the production unit in monetary units. With unit costs costing also includes their specific consumptions per unit of production in natural units, especially in the areas of consumption of charge material. The article points to the fact that in the metallurgical production there are also known cases of the specific consumption of time per the unit of production, i.e. the labour consumption of individual products, which are however in the Product costing only indicated to a limited extent. This article proposes the system of using labour consumption of individual products listed in the costing to manage the Labour consumption of the metallurgical production.

The article deals with the application of utility theory as a useful tool for decision-making analysis of risk. While the theoretical value of the concept is clear, its application in practice is not easy. In addition to frequent reigning skepticism among managers,there must be overcome some problems of measurement to obtain relevant results. This article aims to showcase metallurgical company of using utility theory in practice.

Many of metallurgical companies are joined to the chain of suppliers of automotive producers. Automotive industry suppliers must submit evidence about capability of their processes, which is evaluated on the basis of quality of products produced by these processes. In the cases of normally distributed quality characteristics process capability analysis is performed according to standard procedure. Problems are in the cases, when data of monitored quality characteristic are not normally distributed. Example is symmetry of produced parts. This paper is focused on capability analysis of overmoulding process in terms of achieving part symmetry. Measured part consists of metal rod and overmoulded eye. There are presented various approaches to process capability analysis in this case and suitable procedure for non normality solution is proposed in this paper.

Companies’ effort to work effectively, associated with the implementation of lean philosophy principles, has changed significantly all companies processes within last decade. Since the day when principles of lean manufacturing were introduced by Toyota there have been a huge progress not only in the number of companies’ departments where these principles may be implemented, but also in the number of companies adopting them in any of them. In the very beginning, lean processes were associated to automotive mainly, but today we can see an acceptance of these principles also in other industries. Main focus of the article is on comparison of differences in management of company’s supplies and procurement in two companies. Data about supplies’ management and processes in automotive company will be compared to the data from company operating in engineering, metallurgy. This comparison should confirm the statement, that not only production, but also all companies’ processes are lean nowadays, and that the principle of being lean within whole supply chain management has been accepted also by companies in other industries, including suppliers of metal products. Article describes key elements of lean supply chains and identifies how far are the companies from other industries, more concrete from engineering, metallurgy, with their implementation.

The results of the risk assessment in the logistics processes at the metallurgical industry are presented in this article. The paper contains a comparison of safety systems based on the PN-EN 18001 and OHSAS. In the process of risk assessment FMEA method was used. The most critical of safety areas have been determined obtained from analysis.

One of the objectives of the optimization of material, energy, information and financial flows in logistics and supply chains is ensuring economic efficiency of the activities carried out. The established manner of the flow in the chain and the method of carrying out logistics activities are, however, determined by the specific conditions prevailing in enterprises of the links involved. Chains operating on the basis of win-win approach take into account the specifics of the links involved; however it is the link with the greatest bargaining power in the chain that usually plays the decisive role in shaping the results. The paper describes the results of a primary research focused on the economic impact resulting from the implementation of production based on the build-to-order principle, requiring flexible provision of inputs. At the same time, it specifies the implications of this production in the cooperation with direct suppliers of metallurgical material, who must adapt their supplies to this production while taking also into account the specifics of their own metallurgical production.

Based on the analysis of value generator the main aim is to assess whether and to what extent it creates value for its owners. The value of metallurgical enterprise, then in the Czech Republic is usually estimated based on an income approach (income approach), which is generally based on the capitalization of future benefits (profit or cash flow) of the company stemming. The basic generators of enterprise value include corporate revenues. These can be very hard to predict, especially due to overall development of metallurgical industry when more steel products are imported into the Republic, and global manufacturing is dominated by Asian countries. In practice, this causes the decrease in volume contracts for Czech Republic. Therefore the valuation of metallurgical enterprises becomes even more complicated and more specific.

In case of increasing requirements for cleanliness of products in metallurgy is necessary to take into account all sources accompanying elements from the entire course of the process. The main source of charge is mainly iron-bearing charge - mainly pig iron and steel scrap, further ferroalloys used in the production and fluxes. Therefore attention must be paid to the choice and particular sorting charge materials. Economic evaluation is directly related to new Act on Waste.

The main purpose of this paper is to present the situation of the Polish steel industry, and to show the impact of economic conditions on steel sector. The study covered the period from 2006 to 2013. The steel industry in Poland was restructured and strongly felt the fluctuations caused by the economic crisis in 2009. The steel production was strongly linked with the situation in the economy, measured by the pace of GDP growth, the size of the domestic demand, the dynamics of industrial production. Only in the case of the production of hot rolled products did not confirm this relationship. Dependent on the economic situation was employment in the sector. Independent of the market situation was exports and imports of steel products and their level of consumption. The only exception to this rule was the consumption of long steel products.

The utilization of the voluntary measures to reduce environmental impact in the industries characterized by the high level of energy and pollution intensity is essential for achieving sustainable development. Therefore, the main purpose of this article was to investigate the engagement of steel and metal enterprises operating in Poland in the implementation of the voluntary environmental management practices, and to explore its relationships with the scope of interorganizational cooperation, the knowledge sharing intensity and the level of eco-innovation.
The research has shown that planning and organizational practices are more developed than operational practices. Both types of environmental practices have been significantly related to the enterprises’ level of eco-innovation. There have been also statistically significant relationships between the engagement in environmental management practices implementation and the scope of interorganizational cooperation and the knowledge sharing intensity within enterprises. However, the results of conducted study reveal that interorganizational cooperation and the knowledge sharing are not significantly related to the enterprises’ level of eco-innovation. Nevertheless, the results have proved that the more intensive interorganizational cooperation and the knowledge sharing, the more advanced voluntary environmental practices are implemented. This means that interorganizational cooperation and the knowledge sharing may indirectly support eco-innovation. Those activities directly foster environmental practices implementation which in turn significantly influences level of eco-innovation. For that reason, it is very important to develop and continually improve such activities.

The effort to long-term prosperity of companies and the achievement of high productivity is the goal of the enterprise managers for decades. More than 100 years ago the first effort to introduce scientific practice in corporate governance can be traced and through them achieved the maximum productivity during the elimination of wasting of any kind. The current trend of customer requirements of fulfillment entails the increase of production variability. Purely serial production shifts their demands closer towards the custom production. Nevertheless, customers and management of enterprises expect maximum quality, speed and reliability of supply but if it is possible for the costs of mass production. If we want to be successful and compete in this field, it is necessary to know how and under what conditions the companies operate including the difficulties associated with their management. There is a number of technical publications where it is widely described a variety of methods and techniques that can be used on the way to a lean company. One of these techniques is also Value Stream Mapping (VSM). This paper provides examples of the use of value stream mapping in practice. This paper presents an example of the use of VSM in a company that is a leading steel producer and owns the largest metallurgical complex in the Czech Republic. VSM method was applied in the manufacturing process of seamless steel tubes.

The article deals with outputs from a survey conducted among Czech metallurgical and cooperating enterprises in 2014 on the labor turnover rate and human resource planning. Responses to questions showed both underestimation and, on the other hand, sophisticated systematic approaches taken towards the creation and monitoring of human resource plans, which other companies can learn from.

An increased competition and customer expectations according offered products lead to the conclusion that it is essential to measure and assess very carefully business activity. This need is observed especially in metallurgical sector, where production is more and more often made in make-to-order systems. As research indicated, there are many differences in management of make-to-order systems. It is especially important when an increased number of make-to-order systems is observed.
In the paper the proposition of the system of Key Performance Indicators to assess enterprises belonging to metallurgical sector is presented. The proposed solution leads to improve efficiency of the main strategic objectives realization and helps to significantly improve monitoring and control of strategy realization in enterprises of metallurgical sector.

In every manufacturing company the maintenance of machinery and equipment is one of the most important components of the manufacturing process. Acquisition of machinery and equipment is a major investment for a company and the company expects it would return in the form of incomes. It is necessary to ensure both the functionality and the smooth and trouble-free operation of the acquired machine. Any defects that may occur in the plant bring about many complications, time delay and related costs. The stability of the production system thus depends on maintenance. The article deals with injection molding, analyzing the costs of maintenance and analysis of the causes of injection moulds scrap.

The typical problems facing with small metallurgical companies are prediction errors, because their markets are volatile and difficult to predict. For that reason, the ability to develop accurate demand predictions is critical in the industry. The paper presents a hierarchical middle-term predictive model for small metallurgical companies. The model is built by top-down predictive approach and verified by means of a case study in the company producing the special rolled sections. Weaknesses of the model are identified during discussion of the acquired results. A Generalized concept of ANN predictive model is designed for elimination these weaknesses.

This paper deals with the influence of non-financial indicators in the economic and financial management in the metallurgical enterprise. The traditional statements compare with supporting documents based on the financial indicators in the practical modeling connected with the method of Balanced Scorecard. The aim of this work is to demonstrate the suitability of the perception of non-financial indicators as an important tool for planning, analysis and managerial decision making.

This article deals with two specific forms of long-term bank loans in the form of mezzanine capital, i.e. participating loans and subordinated loans. Mezzanine capital instruments are hybrid forms of capital, combining the features of debt and equity. These instruments represent an interesting opportunity to finance enterprises operating in capital-intensive industries, such as metallurgy. When making decisions about their incorporation in the corporate capital structure, it is necessary to consider their qualitative and quantitative characteristics. The authors aimed to characterize and evaluate participating loans and subordinated loans, and also to identify, structure and quantify the cost of these forms of private debt mezzanine within the context of classic bank loans in the current conditions of the Czech Republic. The paper characterizes participating loans and subordinated loans and evaluates their pros and cons from the qualitative point of view. The attention is also paid to the quantitative point of view – the cost of the above forms of capital. The paper specifies a detailed structure of the cost items, both as for the acquisition costs and as for the life-cycle costs of participating loans and subordinated loans. Subsequently, individual cost items are quantified from the point of view of the current conditions in the banking practice of the Czech Republic.

The conditions of enterprises operation in steel sector for the globalization era are constantly changing. In line with its ambition to strengthen its competitive position it is necessary to look for sources of competitive advantage. This should be done through both strategic and operational decisions. The advancement of resource efficiency can be achieved by the use innovative, alternative fuels in metallurgical production. Fine tailings produced as a result of hard coal beneficiation process and its preparation, not so long ago regarded as useless materials, are gaining more and more often value as minerals. Increasingly, intense research is being conducted on the possibility of using them as carbonaceous materials in metallurgical processes, e.g. in the iron ore sintering process, in the pyrometallurgical processes for the preparation of copper or in the process of recycling of metal-bearing materials. This paper presents the possibility of using composite alternative fuels for use in the processes of pyrometallurgy of copperas an alternative reducing agent as well as an energy carrier (alternative fuel) to currently used coke breeze. These fuels are mainly based on waste carrier of "C" element, and the composition of the fuel is modelled in order to obtain the appropriate energy an demission parameters as well as strength parameters. The paper presents benefit analysis of using composite alternative fuelsin metallurgical production.

Mechanical characteristics of the creep-resisting alloy IN 713 LC depends on its content and material purity, furthermore on the structure and structural non-homogeneities. Significant influence on the material properties, for its usage, has the way of crystallization (exogenous and endogenous/ from walls or with pulpy solidification from the centre of the casting), temperature (influences the direction and magnitude of the growth of dendrites), vaccination secured using cobalt aluminate (formation of nucleation germs).
The aim was to realize the tests on the samples. Casting process and sequential detail grain structure study. The samples were analysed by RTG and FPI method, in the form of a compact material. The samples were cut. Interesting data were obtained in these areas: grain size and structure with dependence to the casting temperature, the shell annealing temperature and packing by exothermic padding – Sibral, on the specified places defined with the insulation thickness to ensure surface controlled crystallization in the casting.

This paper is dedicated to the problems of cooperation of supply chain members aiming to make use of synergic effects resulting in a number of benefits, e.g. lower costs, improved customer services, increased negotiation power, enhanced performance, or maximization of the value perceived by the customer. The paper aims to describe, analyse, and evaluate the methods of cooperation of the members of supply chains in metallurgy from the point of view of a particular company processing steel coils which is selling their products on B2C market. The analysis was based on the method of a comparison of outcomes acquired through the method of in-depth interviews conducted with managers of the given enterprise in accordance with a questioning scenario with the outcomes of the performed scientific literature research, which focuses on forms, prerequisites, benefits, and risks of cooperation within supply systems with respect to their characteristics and structure.

The paper presents an application of the methodology for resilience measuring of selected metallurgical supply chain. The methodology is based on the multi-criteria decision making method -Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The basic steps of the methodology include: determination of analysed resilience skills, selection of measurable criteria, building a hierarchical system to determine the local and global weights, measurement and analysis of values of examined measurable criteria, the calculation of results based on the principles of AHP. The SuperDecisions software was used for the application. Strategic set of recommendations on the development of supply chain resilience for the investigated metallurgical supply chain is created based on acquired results.

The main purpose of this paper is to compare the economic efficiency of the metal production sector with other manufacturing industries in Poland. The study applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which is a non-parametric method based on production theory and the principles of linear programming. It enables one to assess how efficiently a firm, organization, country, or such other decision making unit (DMU) uses the available inputs to generate a set of outputs relative to other units in the data set. The analysis gives a possibility to create a ranking of sectors. The results point out the reasons of the inefficiency and provide improving directions for the inefficient Decision Making Units.

The requirements of technical practice on the quality of graduates are still growing. The quality of teaching and the related possibility of employment of the students after their studies depend largely on the degree of correspondence of the curriculum and techniques currently used in practice. In addition to excursions to specialized firms the opportunity to become acquainted with the study methods and technologies through models is very important. It is the physical models which play an irreplaceable role and which are preferred by students due to their illustrative nature and authenticity. An exact physical realization of pedagogical models of most of metallurgical technologies is not fully possible in a laboratory environment. Heating of the material which is very common technology used in metallurgy can be successfully implemented in laboratories under certain restrictions. For this purpose an electric stepper analogy of multi-zone heating furnace was created, which allows students to realize certain measurements that are rarely feasible in real practice. Thus the necessary data for identification, modelling and simulation of processes taking place in the furnace are gained. Students can thus design and implement both continuous and pulsed control and optimize the operation of the entire aggregate.

The paper deals with the optimal layout of smelting sequences in continuous steel casting device (CCM) using K-Means clustering methods as well as using fuzzy clustering. This optimization is trying to achieve a positive effect to the mold’s durability. During the production of steel by continuous casting are subsequently casting different steel grades. That steel grades differ in their composition and production efficiency and to increase the life of the mold is necessary to determine the appropriate sequence of the casting. The parameters on whose basis the cluster analysis was made were chemical composition, liquids temperature, superheat and other technological parameters.

Intermetallic compounds based on Ti-Al, Ti-Ni, Fe-Al, Ni-Al and other systems require specific conditions during melting in a high-frequency vacuum induction furnace, especially material for melting crucibles and batch arrangement. The technology of casting plays an important role, too. The most common technology, very often used, is gravity casting. However, this method has certain disadvantages, namely frequent possibility of occurrence of cavities in the upper parts of the castings. Another possibility, currently often used, is technology of centrifugal casting. In this case several variants of arrangement of the device exist. With the combined vacuum-induction-centrifugal casting systems it is possible to realize the precision fine casting very economically with a compact system, also under vacuum and/or protective gas. As a melting crucible materials, oxide ceramic materials based are very often used, namely Al2O3, CaO, ZrO2, with addition of Cr2O3 and others. Next material, which is very often used for manufacturing of melting crucibles, is graphite of various quality. This article deals with examination of melting and centrifugal casting of Ti-Ni-X and Ti-Al-X alloys with use of graphite crucibles. Both types of alloys are very sensitive to carbon content. It is well known, that alloys based on titanium are during melting very reactive with graphite crucible, so the carbon content determination was realized in all prepared alloys. Microstructures were evaluated by OM and SEM techniques. For casting of experimental material casting mould with the inner diameter of 20 mm and length of 225 mm was used.