During the production of steel, there are various process parameters one can tune to influence the quality of the resulting product. The holy grail is to have a program that determines the needed values of these parameters based on the required mechanical properties of the steel. But,..... there is a long way to go still. In this presentation I will sketch approaches taken to solve some statistical sub-problems within this project. Based on joint work with Kimberly McGarrity, Martina Vittorietti, Piet Kok and Jilt Sietsma.