“How flexibly can metallurgical plants be operated?” This question has not been put worldwide in many years, since — against the background of the ever increasing demand for crude steel — the focus was on measures aimed at additional outputs. With the economic crisis which came more or less sudden towards the end of 2008, the operators of metallurgical plants were facing completely new problems. The plunge in order intakes called for decisions which produced immediate effects, in order to adapt the entire chain to the requirements, beginning with logistics and storage of raw materials down to the linked production units of integrated works. In view of costs which exploded in proportion to the reduced production quantity on the one hand, and the necessity to preserve the existing plants on the other hand, in order to step up production and sustainably keep it on a high level as soon as demand started to increase again, the responsible operators had to take quite interesting strategic decisions on various solutions geared to plant-specific conditions.