Conventionally billets coming out of the caster are cut to length and are cooled on the cooling bed. Then they are reheated in a fuel-fired reheating furnace to 1200OC and then sent to the rolling mill. In the hot billet rolling process hot billets from the caster are directly sent to the rolling Mill for rolling without any reheating. This process has revolutionized steelmaking in the Indian steel industry and we look upon ourselves as the people responsible for this revolution. It was the ET Team that went across all the steel clusters of India, conducted seminars, displayed videos, made presentations on the advantages of direct charging of hot billets, and encouraged steelmakers to opt for this process. For hot billet rolling to be successful required and constant temperature of the billet coming out of the caster is most important. With our caster desired temperature is achieved from the first billet and is maintained till the last billet because our casters can operate at a high speed and PLC-based automation ensures the right temperature for rolling. Therefore the percentage of billets hot rolled is highest. This is the reason hot billet rolling became popular only after we commissioned our first caster in an SMS and rolling combined plant. With other makes of casters, hot billet rolling is very difficult due to the design limitations.