PROCESS IMPROVEMENT IN A STEEL MAKING COMPANY TO INCREASE OUTPUT OF NICKEL

Abstract

With the development of economy, more and more stainless steel is needed in the modern buildings. The steel manufacturing industry has developed rapidly. Although there are already many enterprises in steel industry, it still cannot adapt to the needs of rapid economic development in the region from the perspective of development trends. The annual production 150,000 tons project of PT XYZ Nickel Industry is established to satisfy the large demand of stainless steel in the market.As a newly established infant project, there are many technologies that are immature. There are many defects in the RKEF system. In the beginning, the recovery of nickel is only 66%, the daily cost of 1% nickel is $38. Many raw aterials are wasted in the production process. Around 28.75% nickel ore is turned in to dust-ash which is not recycled. The daily waste of nickel ore is $18,880. The low recovery and the high cost seriously affect the benefits. PT XNI stays at a disadvantage in the fierce market competition.The objective of this research is to find the weakness in the system and strengthen it. After analyzing the production flow, a new dust-ash collector is built to perfect the RKEF system. By implementing the new system, the recovery has great growth from 66% to 93%, the cost has great reduction from $38 to $26. It takes a great promotion of the benefits. The net present value arrive at $223.644 million of this project. The benefit cost ration is 1.23. The internal rate of return is 16.06%. It is economical in the engineering economic analysis.