With increasing demands from customers to provide flat strip with tighter tolerances on material properties, particularly flatness of e.g. martensitic steel grades, it has become necessary to develop strategies to improve flatness without influencing the tensile properties for such hard steel grades. Usual skin pass mills are not capable to apply sufficient tension and roll force for these kinds of material to improve the flatness. Therefore, alternatives had to be searched for. This paper describes skin pass- / temper – rolling methods from the classical one to new alternatives in order to satisfy the demanding market of higher material properties and idle running mills in rolling plants.