The so-called CROWN programs have been developed as a result of the co-operation in the Scandinavian Steel Industry. They consist of separate physical models for calculation of plate or strip temperature and roll thermal expansion, wear and elastic deformation. Flatness and residual stresses in the material are deduced from the relative change in profile during rolling with the aid of a shape vector method which considers the transverse metal flow in the roll gap. The CROWNON model is an on-line model which can be used for process control in rolling mills. A new optimized pass schedule generation system has been developed for the plate mill in Rautaruukki. The pass schedule is calculated in the forward direction for the sizing pass, broadside passes and the longitudinal passes. The drafts for the broadside and the first longitudinal passes are limited by maximum force, torque and strain. For the last longitudinal passes, the shape vector method is applied and the draft is restricted by the maximum steepness and flatness criteria. The change in the relative elongation differences between the centre and the edge of the plate together with experimentally determined values for the transverse metal flow (e.g. ξ-values) are used in the schedule calculation. To predict correct rolling loads during the scheduling, an adaptive temperature-dependant force-draft model is used based on statistical analysis of the rolling process. The system has decreased the number of passes, improved the yield and has provided the possibility of rolling thin, wide plates, e.g. 4.7 × 3250 mm with good flatness and minimum crown. The barrel length of Rautaruukki's plate mill is 3,6 m and the maximum rolling speed is 5 m/s. During the last years two dimensional and three dimensional Finite Element simulations of hot rolling of flat products have been made. The calculated rolling forces show very good agreement with experiments made in Rautaruukki's plate mill. © 1992.