Abstract: The aim of schedule pacing control during composite multi-plate rolling is to make the plate rolling more automatic and increase the mill utilization. Analyzing the characteristics of composite multi-plate rolling process, three modes of the process are classified, i.e., equal-interval alternating, symmetric-interval alternating and grouped alternating. Thus the characteristics and feasible conditions for each of the three modes are described with the formulae of optimum time interval for starting rolling operation and mill utilization both given. Taking account of the restriction of mill table length, the parameters relevant to the formulae are adjusted properly to provide a heuristic method for pacing control. The computation results showed that the proposed method is more accurate than existing method with wider applications.