Rehearing furnace is an important device with complex dynamic characteristicsin steel plants. The temperature tracing control of reheating furnace has great importance both tothe quality of slabs and energy saving. A model-based control strategy, multivariable constrainedcontrol (MCC) for the reheating furnace control is used. With this control method, the furnace istreated as a six-input-six-output general model with loops coupled in nature. Compared with thetraditional control, the proposed control strategy gets better temperature tracing accuracy andexhibits some energy saving feature. The simulation results show that the performance of the furnaceis greatly improved.