Alan Roberto – Reduction of energy in steel processing

The Challenge

I am a student of mechanical engineering. This year during the entrepreneurship class,

the teacher asked us to choose a theme for a business project. We got together in groups of 4
people, and our theme was the reduction of energy in steel processing. At our first meeting we
had to give a general explanation about the project's subject and define the tools we would use
at work.

The Selection

Our group decided to use mind map as a tool in brainstorming. There are many ways
to find the most effective method, so the purpose of using the tool is to find the best solution to
this energy reduction problem. It is expected to be simple, organized and efficient.

The Application

At first each person wrote his ideas on a sheet of paper, then each person exchanged
the sheet with another and tried to create more ideas based on those of the other, through
analogies or thinking exactly the opposite.
After that the ideas were grouped, being similar, simple or complex, and those that
apparently had little to do with the project or were not applicable for some reason. After
eliminating some ideas, the rest were chosen for mind mapping.
In this stage, the types of energy and methods of reduction were defined, costs and
times of the processes, as how the companies of the sector were managing these problems. We
discussed and arrived at the best option to achieve the project objective.
We did a written assignment, which our teacher evaluated positively our project and
finally we made a presentation to the class showing the results of our work.

The Insight & Approach

During the process of creating ideas we realized that the amount of ideas generated is
very large, needing to be organized in an efficient way. Some ideas were withdrawn because
they have no application at the moment.
After being separated into categories, understanding was facilitated and the general view was
easier. The difficult part was when the group had to make decisions about cost and process
times because it was necessary to search for external information.
It was necessary to do research on the internet and go on visits to companies in the
steel sector. After the final data collection we managed to put some ideas into the project.
We believe it is possible with money and commitment to set up a real company based on the
studied project.