Using Expert Systems in Blast Furnace Operation - a few preliminary • • ImpressIons Per Storm Industrial Economics and Management Royal Institute of Technology, KTH Stockholm, Sweden Abstract In this paper the enigmatic development of a expert system for blast furnace control in the steel industry. It is used as an example of how a perceived "low tech" industry may develop a "high tech" tool and the paper point to some initial impressions on consequences both on an industry and individual level. Keywords Artificial intelligence, Blast Furnace, Control Expert system, Steel Industry 1 THE PARADOX: A HIGH TECH TOOL IN A LOW TECH INDUSTRY Traditionally, the steel industry is regarded as one of out oldest industries still in operation. Looking at one of the key technologies in the industry, the blast furnace process, it has been known to man for at least six hundred years. However, if a blast furnace on the brink of the twenty-first century is compared to a fourteenth century furnace, how much is really are the same? In an abstract sense they are similar, both are charged from the top with iron ore, slag formers and a reducing agents and carbon saturated pig iron is tapped at the bottom. Somewhere here the similarities stop. A modern blast furnace is a highly computerised piece of production equipment capable of producing very large amounts of highly standardised hot metal qualities from different and varying raw materials. Recently, The original version of this chapter was revised: The copyright line was incorrect. This has been corrected. The Erratum to this chapter is available at DOI: © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 1998 10.1007/978-0-387-35321-0_72 U. S. Bititci et al. (eds.), Strategic Management of the Manufacturing Value Chain