Energy, yield and alloy cost were known accurately — a month after the steel had been priced and sold.
The commercial team quoted against a standard conversion cost while the plant knew that cost moved substantially with grade, section and the power tariff block the campaign ran in. Reconciliation at month end explained the gap but could not close it, and the grades that consistently lost money kept being sold.
Power, fuel, electrode and alloy consumption are attributed to the heat rather than to the period, and carried forward through rolling and finishing to the despatched tonne. Burning loss, crop and rejection are captured by grade and shift. The result is a running conversion cost per tonne that the commercial team can see before the next order is priced.
Two sections that had been quoted at standard cost were found to be loss-making at their actual conversion cost, and were repriced. Campaign planning now considers the tariff block as a cost input rather than a constraint on scheduling.
Certificates were retyped from laboratory results into a template, which is exactly where the errors came from.
